Chapter Text
Ten years.
It’s been ten years since the last time he saw Keith. Ten years since the last smile and handshake that turned into a hug, ten years since Keith whispered into his ear the words that would haunt him every day after, through all the cold sterile months in space and all the way back.
Ten years, and Keith still moves with the same feline grace he always has. Keith’s older now, just as Shiro is, and it shows in the way his shoulders are a little broader, his jaw a little sharper and the confidence that he holds himself with.
There’s a small flicker of pride in him at that. Keith had come a long way since Shiro had first vouched for him at the garrison, when he just a scrappy young kid with a chip on his shoulder and a point to prove.
He was always something special, but now it wasn’t only Shiro that could see it.
“You can go talk to him, you know,” a voice says. Shiro tears his gaze away, forcing it to land on his husband.
No, his ex-husband now. Whatever it was he and Matt had between them, it was faded and worn. Just a sincere memory shared and a child that was a perfect blend of the two of them. He thinks about his son now, hoping that the sitter isn’t having any trouble getting him to bed. Shiro hated leaving him alone with someone outside the family circle but since he had no parents and the Holts were all here tonight, it didn’t leave them many options.
“I’ll go say hello later.”
Matt looks at him and Shiro knows that look. Two years shoved together in a tin can on the edge of the solar system had turned their easy friendship into something a little more. He hadn’t expected it to last when they got back to Earth, he’d still been half thinking of Keith, but by the time they had and emerged from quarantine triumphant from their mission, Keith had graduated and was halfway around the world in training for his own missions.
They hadn’t been able to connect again, their missions never coinciding, their requests to be paired up long ignored.
And then… it seemed they had just stopped trying.
Probably for the best, Shiro had told himself. His feelings were never clear cut when it came to Keith. They might have devoured each other alive out there in the black, no longer with the excuse of Keith’s junior years between them. Shiro doesn’t let himself think about what might have been. Not anymore.
“You guys used to be close. I never understood why you stopped talking.”
Shiro catches another glimpse of dark hair shining in the mock candlelight. Neither did I, he thinks.
Keith stands on the other side of the room, a flute of sparkling champagne in his hand and a crack threatening to split apart the thing in his chest he calls a heart. Even after all this time, the longing hurt. Even after all this time, he’s vividly aware of where Shiro is at all times. Even when he doesn’t want to be, Shiro’s aura pulls at him like a magnet and he doesn’t understand why.
He never understood why.
He never understood how someone can have such an affect on him, or how someone who’d promised he’d be there for him, that he would always be there for him simply… wasn’t.
It wasn’t Shiro’s fault, Keith knew that. But it had stung.
A rotation in the black that kept them apart, missed connections that meant almost three years had passed before they’d seen each other again, and then just in the halls of quarantine, thick glass between them, Shiro arriving back planet side as Keith was about to leave. There’d been no time to talk in amongst all the preparations, no time to take a moment together, to find each other again.
Shiro been there at his first launch though, Keith had been told. He had been there somewhere in the crowd. That counted for something Keith guesses. A favour returned.
And then, the rare occasion that they were both planet side at the same time had filled him with hope, only to realise Shiro wasn’t planet side for him. No. Shiro went and got married instead.
He takes a sip of his champagne, willing the alcohol to fill the cracks inside him.
The night wears on, speeches from old friends and colleagues congratulating the original team. It’s been ten years but still no other mission had ventured as far. There wasn’t any point. The Garrison, for all their efforts, didn’t have the capabilities for interstellar flight yet, and humanity was still content to mine its own solar system for resources, to populate the moon, expand colonies into Mars and hover in the shadows of Jupiter’s rings.
The Kerberos mission was still the epitome of the Galaxy Garrison’s triumphs, proof they could go to the edge and come back.
Shiro glances up at the photos on the wall, himself and Matt so young and fresh and smiling in the face of the very real danger that lay before them. He remembers being so confident, the thrill squashing the fear. Commander Iverson, now older and greyer and even more wizened around the edges, pats him on the shoulder, fondly recalling the day the mission returned to earth. Shiro’s lips twist and his eyes still roam the crowd until he catches sight of that pointed chin, that sharp profile once again.
Sometimes he used to wonder if he still would he have still gone if he knew what he was going to miss.
It’s impossible to avoid him any longer.
Keith swaps the champagne for something stronger, the crowd thins and for the fourth time that night, Keith wonders why he’s come. What was he hoping for exactly? Ten years had passed and he wasn’t the scruffy kid with an attitude anymore. He was an experienced pilot in his own right now, countless missions and time in space under his belt…. Yet here he was, still waiting… still hoping… for Shiro to notice him.
“Shiro,” he says softly when Shiro finds him first. It’s hard to look at him, his nerves make his hands feel clammy.
“Keith, it’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too. Has it really been ten years?”
It seems like a pointless thing to ask. As though he hasn’t felt every one of those years without Shiro, as though if he keeps the conversation inane and bland, Shiro won’t catch on how much Keith had missed him.
God, it’s been ten years, Keith wants to scream at himself on the inside. Ten years. He’s not yours, he never will be.
“I know, I can hardly believe it. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah,” Keith agrees. He makes the mistake of looking up, and those deep steely grey eyes capture him, just like they always did, probably like they always will. A long-forgotten wave rolls inside him, the same ache and swell that always did in Shiro’s presence. A wave Keith thought he’d long ago learned to ignore.
He’s drowning in it once again.
“So, how have you been? What have you been up to?”
Shiro asks it casually but there’s a glint in his eye that feels familiar. He leans in a little closer and something about the movement is so comfortable and so cursed it makes Keith’s chest pang with something close to pain. He tells himself it’s irritation instead.
Keith shifts back, a twist to his lips and a spark in his eyes that he knows Shiro understands.
“Oh, you know,” Keith says with a shrug. He looks away, trying to loosen the tension in his jaw. This… this isn’t how he wanted it to go. How many years had he dreamed about a moment like this?
Too many.
“Hit the fast track and graduated while you were on your way to Kerberos, flew a few missions, spent some time on Ganymede and Ceres, but I’m home for good now,” he says. He aims for nonchalance. He almost succeeds.
“Yeah? Your decision or… theirs?”
Keith slides him a glance. “Mine. My rad score was too high to go back up anyway,” he says, referring to the radiation exposure each person who went into space endured. Too high a score, too much exposure, and they grounded you. If you didn’t opt to retire first.
Shiro nods in understanding. “Me too. A few years ago now though,” he adds.
“Hmm,” Keith takes a sip of his drink to steady himself. His heartrate beings to thunder annoyingly in his ears. “That’s right. I heard you and Matt got married not long after Kerberos. Congratulations, by the way.”
He doesn’t mention the invitation he’d received for it. Or the way he’d ignored it.
Neither does Shiro.
“Well, we’re… divorced now,” Shiro shrugs. Shrugs like it meant nothing and Keith’s thoughts scatter into the wind before snapping back in a messy jumble he can’t seem to process. His entire world suddenly shifts and he hates… hates himself for the abrupt flash of.. what was that? Hope?! that crawls out of the muck inside him.
A strained moment passes before he can find his voice. “I’m… I’m sorry to hear that.”
The way Shiro raises an eyebrow and his lip quirks makes Keith wonder if he can still read the lies in his voice like he used to be able to. Suddenly Keith feels like he’s seventeen again, and Shiro’s waging a war inside himself Keith wishes he would just lose.
I’m not that kid anymore, Shiro. Do you see me now?
“It’s okay,” Shiro finally says. “We have a son, and that’s the best possible thing that came out of it. Plus, we’re still friends. There’s no animosity there. Not like some breakups.”
“Oh,” Keith’s thoughts stutter again, and the wave inside him turns verdant with jealousy. Matt and Shiro have a son? There’s a boy out there, somewhere, that has a part of Shiro… and Matt, even if they were divorced, they had a bond that would never be broken. Could never.
And he’s abruptly, irrationally jealous.
Jealous, because didn’t they talk about it once, out in the desert, under the stars they were going to traverse together, huddled against the warmth of the hoverbike, Shiro valiantly trying to keep his hands to himself and Keith determined not to. They promised each other they would go to space together then come back and make a life.
But they hadn’t. And Shiro had done that with Matt instead.
Shiro pulls out his phone then hesitates. “Ah, can… do you want to see a photo?”
Does he? Keith swallows down the green that tastes like bile at the back of his throat and forces a smile to his lips and when Shiro proudly presents him with the image of a small boy, chestnut hair with Shiro’s high cheekbones and gunmetal grey eyes, something in his heart cracks and falls. It lands in the muck of Keith’s childhood dreams he’s raked into a corner, out of sight, out of mind.
“What’s his name?”
“Luca,” Shiro tells him. “It was easier to go with Colleen’s suggestion than to decide anything between us. Matt’s choices were… questionable. He’s almost four now.”
There’s an expression on Shiro’s face Keith’s never seen before and it transforms him. His eyes go soft as they gaze down at the photo that lights up his phone’s screen, his lips curve, the rigidness of his shoulders eases and he looks… happy.
It makes Keith fall out of himself, out of his own selfish yearning with a thud. He glances again at the photo, but this time it doesn’t hurt so much and he realises he’s happy for Shiro. He’s glad Shiro has this.
“He’s cute, Shiro. You must be really happy.”
Shiro pulls his phone away and slides it into his pocket. A new expression slides over his face that Keith can’t quite read, and it’s shuttered enough that Keith senses there’s more he wants to say, but he won’t. Shiro will keep it to himself like he always does.
“It’s hard work,” Shiro says. He smiles, but the smile isn’t quite real. Not enough to fool Keith, who was so well versed in every line and twist and curve of Shiro’s face, even after all these years. And Shiro still looks the same he always did, just a few extra lines around his eyes and his hair a little longer, still the same face that Keith finds himself longing for in the early hours in a lonely apartment on cold nights. “But it’s worth it. What about you? Kids? A spouse? A trail of broken hearts?”
Keith laughs into his glass at that. He shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. Just me,” he says.
Shiro’s gaze seems to linger on him. The same way it used to back in the Garrison. Almost. It’s muted now, but still warm, as though Shiro’s thinking about the time they’d had together. What they’d meant to each other once.
It couldn’t have been as much as they’d thought though. Not when it slipped through their fingers so easily.
“Look, I have to go soon,” Shiro starts to say. “But it’s been really good to see you again. After so long and… I’d like to… Can we catch up? For real this time? Soon?”
Shiro says it so earnestly that Keith’s flimsy protective walls shatter in an instant. Fuck, he had no self-control around this man. The leap of his heart almost leaves him breathless. Shiro’s smiling at him, just a half smile, but it’s something soft, something Keith desperately wants to bask in. He looks down at the glass in his hand, filled with melting ice cubes and tries to swallow down the flood of memory.
“Yeah,” he hears himself say softly, barely a whisper. “I’d like that.”
It’s been weeks since the night of the anniversary gala. Weeks, and every spare thought Shiro has seems to shift back into the desert winds of his youth, before he became a father, before his marriage, before Kerberos. He almost didn’t recognize himself in his memories, the zest he’d had, the drive, the determination.
The fire that set him alight that was Keith.
How could he still feel the burn even after so long? It doesn’t make sense, but he feels it, low in his gut. Scorching. So much so he struggles to hide the dismay in his voice when Keith’s voice fills the other end of the line.
“I’m really sorry about this, Matt’s flight got delayed and I don’t know how long it will be until he touches down so I still have Luca,” Shiro takes a breath. “Maybe we can catch up another time-“
“Bring him with you,” Keith says easily. Shiro has to fumble with the phone, the simple phrase catching him by surprise. It’s nice of Keith to offer but the place they’d agreed to meet at wasn’t kid friendly.
In fact, one of the reasons Shiro had chosen it was specifically because it wasn’t. The chance to sit surrounded by adults that wouldn’t scream and throw plastic plates to the floor because it wasn’t the right colour, or because it god forbid, their food was touching sounded a lot like heaven and he was reluctant to give that up.
Shiro tries not to be disappointed as the vision of pristine white tablecloths, muted music and an actual, real cutlery fades behind his eyes.
“I’m not sure that will work. The place we’re going to meet won’t be great for a three year old.”
“Yeah? Okay so where would be?” Keith sounds amused. Shiro will take amused over annoyed any day.
But then, wasn’t Keith always adaptable?
“Uh, a park, I guess. Somewhere he can run around. Trying to keep him still is a futile exercise I’m not really prepared to repeat unless the situation is dire.”
Keith laughs at that. An outright laugh that travels through the airwaves and into his ear and goes straight to Shiro’s heart like an arrow.
Fuck.
“Okay, text me your address, I’ll come to you and we can go from there if you want.”
Shiro casts a glance around the house, a million toys scattered over the floors, anything of value stacked high on the shelves where small, grubby hands couldn’t reach. There’s a half dead pot plant in the corner he knows Katie is going to chew him out for if she sees it and Luca tugs on his jeans, whining for attention.
And to think he once thought docking a loaded fighter into a damaged space port a few trillion miles from home would be the hardest thing he’d ever have to attempt in his life. Parenthood was a whole other ball game.
“Sure,” he says slowly. “We’ll meet you out front.”
Keith arrives to the sight of Shiro trying to man handle a squirming, giggling kid into the car seat of his car. It takes a second for Shiro to realise he’s there, and Keith steals a precious few seconds to soak up the sight of Shiro in the full flight of fatherhood. And it’s cute and endearing and it makes his heart ache with the realisation it’s not something he’ll ever have.
“Hi,” he smiles when Shiro straightens and turns.
“Hi,” Shiro says back and the moment stretches long between them, a flurry of memory beating against Keith’s skull of how they used to be. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He panics briefly, wondering if he should just get back on his bike and ride away. This was dangerous territory. Shiro was going to break his heart all over again if Keith gave him too much.
Who was he kidding, Shiro already had his all. No one else had ever come close. All Keith could do was strap himself in for the fall.
Shiro recovers first, probably on account of his son wailing out his name.
“Okay, buddy, okay, we’re going. But first, remember how I told you about my old friend Keith that would be coming to the park with us?”
Luca cranes his neck and Keith steps forward. “Hi, Luca.”
“Hello,” Luca says shyly. Keith needs to blink at the sight of Shiro’s eyes in a different face. “I have a blue cup!”
Luca holds up a plastic blue cup just as Shiro lets out a sigh. “Yeah, bud. You do.”
“It’s a very nice cup,” Keith tells him.
Shiro checks the straps on Luca’s seat then gestures to the front seat. “Ready?”
“Sure.”
Keith climbs in, conscious of Shiro’s bulk in the driver’s seat beside him. The drive isn’t long but it takes them through the neighbourhood and through a few traffic lights. Luca keeps up a running commentary in the back seat, sometimes singing a mish mash of nursery songs to himself, or chatting to his cup, or asking his dad what’s out the window.
He’s completely unbothered by the stranger in the passenger seat.
“That’s because you’re not,” Shiro laughs when Keith mentions it quietly as they drive. “I showed him some photos of us. In his mind, you’re already part of the family.”
“Photos of us?” Keith says, belatedly realising Shiro must have shown him photos from their time together at the garrison. He’s not quite sure how to feel about that, that Shiro still has the photos to show, or that his feelings might be written too clearly on his face back then.
He was never very good at stifling his emotions.
“Hey Luca,” Shiro calls out, glancing into the rear vision mirror to check on his son as he drives. They approach an intersection and the lights change. “What colours are the lights?”
“Mmm, blue!”
“No. Come on buddy, you know this. He’s obsessed with blue,” Shiro tells him as an aside.
“Ummm, red!”
“That’s right! What does red mean?”
“Red means stop!”
“Good man. And what about the next colour?”
“Green?”
“What does green mean?”
“Go!”
“And what does orange mean?”
“Go faster!” Luca yells excitedly.
“Oh yeah,” Keith laughs then. Shiro frowns and shakes his head even as Luca starts chanting in the back seat. “He’s definitely your kid,” Keith tells him over the chanting.
“I didn’t teach him that,” Shiro protests. “God, I hope he doesn’t say that in front of Colleen or she’s going to kick my ahh… Backside. No, Luca, it means slow down! Slow. Down.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Luca cackles from the back seat. “Faster!”
“Oh, no,” Shiro groans, but he’s shaking his head and chuckling in resignation.
“Does he know what a speed demon you used to be?” Keith asks with a grin he can’t contain. He remembers the way they used to fly down the highway, whooping as the needle crept too close to speeds that would land them both in big trouble with the garrison. They were always lucky enough to avoid being caught though. Shiro could be cunning that way.
“No, and he never will,” Shiro says. “Don’t you dare tell him,” Shiro half laughs, half threatens at the less than innocent eyebrow Keith raises. “I’ll make you get out and walk if you do.”
“Pfft, that threat didn’t work on me ten years ago, it’s not going to work now,” Keith tells him confidently and the quick glance Shiro throws him makes a part of him feel warm. A flicker of shared history that leaks through into the present.
It makes him feel warm, but the way Shiro’s voice drops low enough that only Keith would be able to hear it makes him feel warmer.
“No, it never did, did it?”
Luca’s antics at the park prove to be an excellent buffer against any lingering awkwardness between himself and Keith. It’s still a new thing, sprouted from something old, something a little bit neglected and damaged but it was starting to grow again. Luca had them laughing and each laugh had the stiffness between them falling away, until Shiro could look at Keith and see the man he’d become, confident and at ease within himself, and not the flighty, sometimes bad-tempered teen of his youth. This was the Keith he had known lay under the surface all along, the Keith he wanted to badly to draw out. The Keith he was sure he’d fall in love with all too easily if his heart had any say.
He smiles when Luca digs out a book from his bag and trudges over to Keith’s side of the picnic blanket, presenting the book and begging Keith to read it.
He smiles wider when Keith takes the book, then tugs Luca into his lap and the two of them get lost in a storybook adventure about a small boy who lost his name. Keith reads with warm inflection, acting out different voices to Luca’s absolute delight and Shiro has to look away when the odd sensation of a hand reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart spreads across him.
And a flare of anger perks up, quickly squashed by disappointment and it makes him pull out his phone and scan his messages.
Nothing.
He holds back a sigh, glancing up to find Keith’s dark eyes watching him, one brow lifted in query. Shiro shakes his head. No messages from Matt, meaning anything from the fact he could still be in the air, or lost in his work in the lab or god knows where else. He still loved Matt, he always would, and he was Luca’s father, but it was never any secret how dedicated Matt was to his work. He worked hard, and he was brilliant, but sometimes, Shiro wished he would be a little more reliable.
He hadn’t been expecting to be raising Luca mostly on his own when they’d made the decision to have a baby. He’d thought it would be another joint adventure, something new they would conquer together, side by side, just like they’d had when they went to Kerberos.
For the first year, it had been good, but then Matt had been offered the opportunity of a lifetime on the other side of the planet and then he was gone. They’d loved each other, but they’d always loved their careers more and that was the tragedy of it.
Keith finishes the story and Luca looks like he’s about to pass out right there in his lap so Shiro picks him up and carries him to the car. He’s asleep on the drive home and Keith is quiet too and he ends up with mostly his thoughts for company until he pulls up in the driveway of their house.
“Sorry it wasn’t quite the catch up we had planned,” he says as he cuts the engine, before Luca can wake up and start to whine. “We still didn’t really get a chance to talk.”
“I had fun though,” Keith answers. “Luca is a great kid. I can see both you and Matt in him so clearly.”
Shiro chuckles at that. “I’ll be sure to tell Katie that. She thinks he’s all her.”
Keith’s mouth quirks up at that, not quite a smile. His brow seems a little furrowed and he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get out of the car. Shiro feels the same. With Luca asleep in the backseat, they’re almost alone and he finds there’s suddenly so much he wants to say.
“Keith, I-“
A small wail from behind cuts him off and any thoughts of himself scatter and refocus solely on his son. “Hey, bud,” he says, reaching back to pat Luca consolingly. “Wake up, little man. We’re home.”
“Home,” Luca repeats, blinking and rubbing his eyes.
“Yeah, bud.”
“I should probably go,” Keith says then, unbuckling his seatbelt and laying a hand on the door handle. Shiro wants to ask him to stay but Luca complains he’s thirsty so he swallows down that thought and climbs out, releasing Luca from his car seat and pulling him into his arms.
“Need any help?” Keith asks.
“Nope,” Shiro flashes him a grin, his arms full of sleepy toddler. “All under control. I could do this in my sleep.”
Keith’s chuckle is light and he gives Luca a small pat on his shoulder. “Thanks for letting me come to the park with you today, Luca. I had fun.”
Luca buries his face into Shiro’s neck, suddenly shy again in his half asleep state. Shiro hopes Keith doesn’t take it personally but the smile they share is warm enough to know he doesn’t.
“Thanks, Keith. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe we can try again?”
How many times had they said those same words in the past? During those years they passed each other like ships in the night. And just like then, they still couldn’t quite find a way to come together, as though the universe was intent on keeping them apart.
He doesn’t voice those thoughts out loud but Keith reads them in his eyes anyway.
“It won’t be like before,” Keith tells him. There’s a determined line to his mouth. “This time we’ll find a way.”
It’s a few more weeks before they can reconnect in person again but they’d swapped a lot of texts in the meantime. Keith finds himself spending more time staring at the small screen of his phone, enough that the people around him start to notice.
“Okay, who is that you keep texting?” Lance demands over happy hour drinks one afternoon. “I’ve never seen you text so much, and I’ve definitely never seen you smile like that before. I didn’t even know you could smile like that.”
“Shut it,” Keith laughs, holding his phone out of reach of Lance’s grabby hands. He shoves a hand in his friends face and he backs off. Lance is right though. He has been smiling more lately. He can’t help it, but it’s been good to talk to Shiro again. Really good. Like a piece of him that had been missing for a long time had finally found it’s way back to him.
“No, seriously, Keith. Are you dating?”
“No,” Keith shakes his head, the smile faltering then fading. “No, he’s an old friend. From the garrison.”
“Oh yeah? Who is he? Maybe I know him.”
Keith takes a sip of his drink in order to stall in the hopes that Lance’s mercurial mood will move onto a different subject. It doesn’t work. “Do you remember the Kerberos mission?”
“Do I remember..? Hell, yes I do! Those guys were heroes. Wait, do you know them?”
Keith nods. “Yeah. Takashi Shirogane is-“
He falters. What was Shiro to him exactly? Back then, he’d been a mentor, then a friend, then his first love. Now? Now he was a relic of his past he was half desperate and half fearful to bring back to life. He’s saved from specifying by Lance slamming his glass down on the counter.
“Hold the phone! You know Takashi Shirogane? The Kerberos pilot? The dude we were all told to look up to an emulate even after we graduated? The garrison’s golden boy? That Takashi Shirogane? That’s who you’ve been texting all this time with that stupid grin on your face?”
Keith frowns at that last part. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
It always felt strange to hear people who didn’t know Shiro gush about him as though he was an idol. As though he was superhuman. Keith couldn’t never quite reconcile the hero worship from strangers with the images he had in his mind. Shiro, who had an unhealthy obsession with the garrison’s mac and cheese, who sang in the shower and had once worn the same gross pair of socks for a week in order to win a bet. Keith wonders if Lance would still be as enamoured if he knew that side of Shiro.
Probably. Shiro won everyone over eventually.
“Dude,” Lance eyes him with a new-found respect. “If I wasn’t already married with a baby on the way, I would so be hitting you up for a number right now.”
“Two babies.”
“You know what I mean,” Lance thumps him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t let that one slip through your fingers. Takashi fucking Shirogane. Holy hell.”
The laugh that falls out of Keith’s chest has a bitter edge. If only Lance knew.
Shiro rushes to answer the video call before the pancakes have a chance to burn but he’s not fast enough and they end up overcooked and rubbery and Luca looks at him like he’s just performed the biggest injustice of his entire young life.
“Hey, Katie,” he says at the face looking down at him from the wide screen on the living room wall. He gets only halfway through before Luca screeches in excitement.
“Auntie Kate!”
“Hi, little man! How is my favourite nephew today?”
“Good!” Luca chirps happily. He holds up a floppy pancake. “Daddy made pancakes. They’re not every good.”
“Thanks, kid,” Shiro says dryly as Katie starts to laugh on the other end of the call. “Let’s tell the entire planet too, huh?”
“That’s because your daddy spent so much time in space,” Katie tells Luca. “He never learned to cook.”
“Not sure if that helps, Katie.”
Her grinning face fills the screen but then she moves back and Shiro sees her surroundings and the way her short auburn hair floats around her head in a halo.
“Where are you?” he asks curiously. She gives him a stern look.
“You know I can’t tell you that. It’s-“
“Classified, right,” he finishes with an exasperated roll of his eyes. She grins at him then picks up whatever device she’s using to record the call on.
“Hey Luca, want to see the inside of a space ship?”
Luca wrinkles his face. “Nah. Papa shows me those all the time. They’re boring.”
Shiro has to choke back a laugh at Katie’s put out expression. “Hey, he’s your brother,” he tells her. “Don’t blame me for that.”
“Seriously, I think Luca must be the only kid on the planet who’s bored by spaceships and rockets,” Katies sighs. “I wonder what he’s going to be when he grows up, if he’ll follow our footsteps.”
The thought makes something pang uncomfortably in Shiro’s chest. Luca’s sitting at the table, stretching the failed pancakes between his fingers and then trying to balance one on his nose. He’s almost four years old but Shiro feels like the day he and Matt brought him home from the hospital was only yesterday, the tiny pink squirmy thing they’d made together. Shiro still remembers the first night, sitting by the bassinet, straining to hear every little puff of breath and wondering how his heart could be so full of someone he’d only just met.
The thought of Luca growing up and striking out on his own, or worse, following the path his parents had forged into space is surprisingly scary to think about. He’s not ready. He’s not ready for that and he’s not sure he ever will be.
Maybe, once Luca’s grown, he’ll get back to his own life.
Luca chatters to his aunt again and she impresses him by sitting crossed legged and upside down in zero G then she twirls and slides from side to side for Luca’s delight and Shiro catches a tiny glimpse of a blue planet in the viewport as she passes by it.
Ah, not far from home then, he guesses but then he already suspected as much.
“Luca, can you give me a few minutes with your dad, we gotta talk some grown up boring stuff.”
Luca shrugs and hops down. He disappears into the lounge and a second later, Shiro hears the sounds of his favourite cartoon. Katie floats closer to the screen.
“So, how was the gala?”
He knows why she’s asking. He folds his arms across his chest and an eyebrow climbs. “It was fine. I think your parents had fun.”
Katie wrinkles her nose. “Dad would, stuck in a room with all those stuffy Commanders. No, I was talking about Keith.”
“Keith? What about him?”
“Oh, no reason,” she says casually. She’s floating upside down again. The delay between the comm is nowhere near long enough for Shiro to hide the shift of his expression. “Matt said you guys talked.”
“We did, briefly.”
She stares down at him expectantly through the screen. He wishes he’d moved it to the tablet rather than the wide TV, maybe then he wouldn’t feel so much like he was an ant under a microscope. She has a knowing look on her face. How does she know? She was young when Kerberos launched. She couldn’t possibly have known what had transpired between himself and Keith those few weeks before the shuttle left Earth.
When he doesn’t say anything more she shakes her head and huffs. “Alright, play it your way,” she says just as a chime sounds. “I’m out of time anyway. Stay safe down there, Shiro. Give Luca a kiss for me.”
“I will,” he promises.
“And Shiro?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re allowed to have a life, you know. Matt does, you should too.”
She blows him a kiss and the call cuts out before he can do much more than lift a hand to wave in farewell or digest what she’s said. The room seems empty now.
He misses her too much.
It’s another week before he hears from Shiro again and Keith does his best not to feel slighted. Tries his best not to fall into that old familiar habit of living his life around where Shiro would be, what he might be thinking. Of contriving a way to make Shiro notice him.
It makes him uncomfortable to realise when he sits on his balcony at sunset, a beer in his hand and memories from ten, twelve years pass in snapshots on the tablet in his lap. He’d been young when Shiro had found him and at the time, Shiro shone like all the worlds that might exist beyond their own. He was a star and he’d turned to shine a little of his light on Keith and Keith had blossomed under it. Thrived. He’d forged to the top of his class, he’d been hot on Shiro’s heels, surging, reaching. Always trying to grasp him.
We’ll go to the stars together, Shiro had said, the sun dipping behind the horizon and staining their world gold red in the desert.
And after? he’d asked, breathless, and no longer a scrappy, messy haired brat but a young man, just days past eighteen.
Shiro had looked at him, something in his eye a promise Keith folded up and tucked away into his heart to sustain him while Shiro would be away. Until it was their turn to go together.
Then we’ll see what this is.
Luca splashes into the pool, a flurry of skinny limbs and messy hair. It’s getting long again, shaggy like Matt’s always was, clearly the heritage of his Holt genes and Shiro makes a mental note to take him for a haircut.
“Thanks, Florona,” he calls out when the swim instructor tugs Luca towards the rest of the class. Shiro takes a seat at the edge of the pool, internally debating how long he has to wait until he can sneakily get out his phone and try to take advantage of the rare Luca-free moment to try and tap out a message to Keith.
It was ridiculous, really. He doesn’t know what to say. It’s not as simple as a potential date, he has a feeling Keith would see past any faux friendliness, even after ten years, he’d know when Shiro was genuine. He is, he thinks. He might not be ready for dating but he wants to get to Keith all over again.
He wants to compare the Keith in his memory to the one he’d met at the Gala, the Keith that had sat in the dappled sunlight in the park and read a story to his son. He wants to explore every nuanced change, every new line around his lips, he wanted to know if he might taste the same, or if he would be shiny and new and wholly unfamiliar.
He’s spent too many nights wondering what it would feel like for more and he drags a hand through his hair to dispel it. The he slides his phone back in his pocket, the screen still dark and messages unsent and concentrates on watching his son.
“Hi,” a familiar voice says a short time later, accompanied by a tap on his shoulder. He doesn’t need to look up to know who the voice belongs to but when he does, the air gets stuck in his lungs anyway.
“Hi,” he breathes.
Keith’s standing beside him, hair shiny and damp, red training shorts riding low on his hips and a sleeveless shirt that shows every curve and line of his shoulders and finely muscled arms. Keith’s always been lean, but never short on tone. He’s wider now, broad across the chest and a sharp V against his hips Shiro needs to tear his gaze away from. He has gym bag slung over one shoulder and a bottle of water in his hands, but it’s the hesitant smile on his lips that has Shiro trying to swallow past his own tongue.
“I didn’t know you guys had lessons here.”
“Yeah,” Shiro struggles a little to find his voice. “Luca. Every week.”
Keith’s attention turns to the pool, eyes searching and Shiro stands and leans close to him to point out his son in the class a few lanes away. Just as he does, Luca looks up from his perch on the edge of the pool and throws his arms up to wave.
“Keef!”
“Hi buddy,” Keith waves back at him. Luca waves frantically in excitement and loses his balance. He topples sideways into the pool and Keith takes a hesitant step forward, worry strewn across his face. “Oh, shit. Is he okay?”
“Yep,” Shiro sighs ruefully. Luca emerges from the water grinning and clinging to the instructor’s arm. He gets deposited onto the side of the pool, none the worse for his unexpected dip. Shiro should be embarrassed at how often that happens but he’s long since resigned himself that Luca was more Matt than him. “He’s fine.”
Keith bites back a small laugh. “Okay. I definitely see the Matt in him now.”
Shiro chuckle and shakes his head. “You have no idea,” Shiro says with mock dismay. He slides a glance at Keith once again. God, he looks good. “Do you work out here?”
“Sometimes,” Keith answers with a shrug. “I fill in for one of the instructors here occasionally.”
Shiro is about to answer when there’s another yell and a wave from the pool. Luca kicks his feet, sending up a spray of splashes much to his classmate’s annoyance.
“That’s great, buddy. You’re doing great! Now, listen to your teacher, okay!” Shiro calls back.
“You know, I thought it’d be weirder to see you in dad mode,” Keith says after a moment.
Shiro’s eyes are on the pool, but his entire body is angled towards Keith. He stands close enough that if Shiro turned his head, he would be able to see the sparkling beads of sweat at Keith’s temple, the faint smatter of freckles on his skin… and the small ponytail tied back at the nape of his neck.
That was new.
His hands twitch with the urge to pull it away and thread his fingers through Keith’s dark hair.
Then Keith’s words sink in and the sensation that manifests in his gut feels abruptly like a lead weight.
Dad mode?
He’s not sure if Keith means it like a compliment or something else, the slight angle to his lips is hard to read. Is that how Keith sees him now? Just a dad?
The thought is mildly depressing.
“It’s weird enough for me,” Shiro finally answers. He wonders if he should step back, put a little space between them. He doesn’t really want to, but he’s not sure if little eyes will take note or understand. That’s something else he’s not ready for. “Been at it for years and I still have no idea what I’m doing.”
He glances back over at Luca, now safely in the swim instructor’s hands, paddling through the water with a kickboard. He feels Keith’s eyes on him.
“I don’t know,” Keith says softly, his voice low. Shiro lets it sink deep inside of him. “Seems like you’re doing a good job so far.”
The weekend rolls around and Keith finds himself walking up the steps to Shiro’s porch with the strange sensation of his entire world is balancing on his shoulders. Maybe this was a mistake, maybe bygones should be left as bygones, maybe he should just smile and give Shiro a hug, wish him well and walk away.
He knows he can’t. He’s selfish and he’s hungry and he wants. He wants, and he’s never stopped wanting and when Shiro called him up to tell him he was childfree and at a loose end for the weekend, Keith didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation to catch up.
The flutter of nerves in his gut turn leaden when the door opens and Shiro welcomes him in.
"Luca is with the Holts this weekend. Matt's going to be away for a while so he wanted to spend as much time with him as he could before he flies out," Shiro tells him. It slams into him with the force of something akin to panic. They're alone. Truly alone.
Alone for the first time since he’d spilled tears all over Shiro’s chest that one night in the desert shack and suddenly Keith wants to back up on his heels and run and never stop running.
But he’s never been able to outrun his heart. He’s tried. God, he’s tried.
The only thing left was to face it and maybe then he’ll find some fucking peace.
He wonders briefly if this is the house Shiro shared with Matt, if they had lived here in happily wedded bliss once then quickly squashes the thought down ruthlessly because honestly? He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to think about the life Shiro had without him.
“Sorry I’m late,” he huffs as he follows Shiro down the hall and into the kitchen. “A friend needed some help moving some furniture and it took us longer than we expected.”
“It’s fine,” Shiro assures him. “I was enjoying having a nice quiet, clean house for once.”
Keith glances around. The space is neat and modern but then he couldn’t imagine Shiro with anything but. Maybe it was the garrison training, maybe it was just Shiro but even back then he’d always been a stickler about everything having its place. Shiro had been forever kicking him up the ass to put his shit away. “It’s not normally?”
“No,” Shiro laughs. “Not with a three year old who is an only grandchild and nephew therefore spoilt rotten with toys.”
“I can’t see anything now.”
“Yeah,” Shiro casts a narrowed look over his shoulder. “Just don’t open any cupboards.”
Keith laughs and the nerves fall away with the echo of Shiro’s chuckle. This feels good. This feels right. Like ten years had never passed and they were just hanging out together counting down the days until Keith turned eighteen, and then the weeks until Kerberos was due to launch.
It feels like no time and an eternity between them all at once and Keith can’t seem to get a grapple on his heart, on his emotions until the hours pass and he settles into each smile Shiro gives him, every warm timbre of his voice saying his name and its heaven and agony rolled in together.
It was still there, Keith realises. It will always be there, lurking in the shadows of his heart. He’s almost sad when Shiro smiles and laughs and the sunlight catches the strands of his dark hair. He doesn’t have the undercut anymore, but he still has those dark bangs Keith wants to run his fingers through.
His heart sighs. His heart wants. His heart aches.
“So, tell me about your missions,” Shiro says later, the alcohol from some fancy imported beer that Shiro had in his fridge warm in their systems.
“Which one?” Keith asks. “There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know. You lived it all yourself.”
“I never got stuck in an asteroid field and ended up listing in a damaged ship for a week though.”
“Oh,” Keith mutters darkly. “That.”
Shiro laughs. The sound goes straight to Keith’s heart and burrows home. The longing of the past ten years flares briefly, so hard Keith struggles to catch his breath but then it fades into something like gratitude. Gratitude and gladness that at least, after all that time, he can have this. Just for a little while.
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard about it. But then I saw your name attached to the flight records and thought, of course. Of course, Keith would try that,” Shiro shakes his head and his lips quirk. The look in his eyes is eerily reminiscent, harking back to reviews of his simulator runs and an exasperated Shiro carding one hand through his hair and trying vainly to be stern but coming across utterly impressed instead.
Keith gives him the same smug grin that he did back then.
“Hey, I ran the numbers and it was sound,” he says confidently. There’s a pause then his mouth turns down and his brows furrow as he recalls the event. “It wasn’t damage from the asteroid belt that knocked us out, it was a fault in one of the power modules. It affected the entire ship. If it hadn’t been for that, we would have made it to Callisto in record time.”
“But you didn’t,” Shiro points out. He tips his beer for emphasis.
“No,” Keith scowls. “We had to be rescued by a cargo class freighter and I got stuck spending three months in it. With a loud mouth pilot who could probably still talk your ear off in the vacuum of space, and his engineer who I have no idea how he made it through the astro-exploration program in the first place because he was not a good flyer and, stop laughing! It was hell, okay.” Keith shakes his head. “Worst three months of my life,” he states emphatically.
Shiro’s still laughing and Keith finds his weak temper fading into humour when Shiro concedes.
“Okay, that does sound pretty awful.”
“It was,” Keith insists, more just to make Shiro laugh again than because he feels like he needs to drive home that point and Shiro’s laugh… Shiro’s laugh is golden. “The worst part is that the pilot and the engineer were an item, so I had to put up with them all over each other every chance they got. Pretty sure the pilot was just trying to piss me off though.”
Shiro’s lips twitch. “Sounds like it worked.”
“It did,” Keith laughs. He can laugh about it now and he’d eventually become friends with the couple, how now Lance was one of the few people in his life he saw or bothered to spend time with on a semi regular basis. He chuckles at the memory and places his empty beer bottle on the table. He’s slightly buzzed now, but that might also be the way his body seems to be sparking with every sound and sight and smell of the man beside him. “They came back to earth about a year or so. They have twins on the way.”
The moment between them falters. Shiro’s gaze skitters away and his beer joins Keith’s on the table.
“It’s pretty common for relationships to form up there. All that time together in space between stations,” Shiro tells him unnecessarily. Unnecessarily because Keith knows. He knows how lonely space flight can be even with a close knit crew. Those long journeys between stations with nothing to do but talk and awkwardly attempt to fuck in zero G. He’d never found anyone he could tolerate longer than he had to but he knows Shiro did.
It sends reality crashing back.
“Is that what happened with you and Matt?” he wants to ask. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to know about how Shiro and Matt fell in love, how it lasted more than just the mission to Kerberos, how it endured through a few more missions around Jupiter’s moons until they’d chosen to return to earth and have a child together.
The sparks on his skin turn into needles and he snatches a tendril of the hurt. Maybe it will keep him tethered enough he won’t fall.
Shiro gives him a smile that seems almost shy. Sad. Apologetic.
It’s too late. He fell years ago.
The afternoon snakes into dusk and they don’t stop talking. It falters in places, but they instinctively skirt away when it gets to painful, like poking at a bruise. It might be a coward’s way of dealing but Shiro figures they have time.
He has Keith back in his life again, he doesn’t want to lose him.
The room darkens and the lamps glow warmly in the corner and Keith sits himself up. They’d migrated to the lounge, sitting stiffly apart initially but somehow, they’d drifted back together. He’s not sure who moved, if it was his own subconscious shuffle, or Keith just trying to get comfortable, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Not when they’re close again and all it would take would be the slightest tilt of Keith’s head and his dark locks would be resting against Shiro’s shoulder.
He wants it. He wants. He wants, he wants he wants.
Ten years ago, he’d kept his hands to himself, right up until the few weeks before he left for Kerberos once Keith had turned eighteen. He knew it was the wrong thing to do, to finally succumb to Keith when he knew he was leaving. They both knew, but in the idealism of young love, they told each other they would be able to weather whatever time threw at them. Keith had been all lean limbs and sharp passion back then, wild in his needs and wants, a whirlwind under Shiro’s fingers that left Shiro aching for more and more. They’d been drunk off each other, in a small dusty shack in the desert on the creaky springs of the threadbare couch, pressed up against the side of hoverbike once the night had fallen, snatching any time together they could.
He’d been Keith’s first, and at the time, he’d hoped to be his last.
His own naivety makes his eyes close now, even as the pit in his stomach widens at the thought of all the years lost. Even if he could go back, do it all over, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t because then he wouldn’t have Luca, and no matter how many times his name graced the record books, Luca would always be his greatest achievement.
“I still have it, you know,” he says when the conversation lulls. His limbs feel heavy. Heavy with regret and beer and a heart that doesn’t know what it wants. “The hoverbike. I still have it.”
Keith sits forward, his eyes go wide. He almost looks like a scrappy teen again, just the tiniest glimpse of a memory until Shiro blinks and the Keith in front of him is nothing but grown and formidable but with an inhaled shard of hope.
It makes something inside of Shiro sit up too.
“Bullshit,” Keith murmurs. Shiro can hear it. He can hear the way his breath half catches, like he’s waiting for the rush, the exhale when Shiro tells him he’s joking.
“It’s in the shed,” Shiro tells him. He knows he sounds smug, but the way Keith’s mouth pops open, lips shiny from the swipe of his tongue catches his gaze and his throat goes dry.
It takes him a long moment to realise the swirl starting to brew inside him.
He can’t remember the last time he looked at another man and simply craved.
He can’t remember the feel of Matt against him, the touch of his tongue, the shape of his body. And he should, he really should and it horrifies him that he can’t. It hadn’t been that many years since they’d gone their separate ways. Three? Four? Five years? He stopped counting after two.
But there hadn’t been a hunger with Matt, there hadn’t been the hungry drive that boarded on punishing. His love with Matt was sweet and gentle and undemanding, a steadily burning ember that was stable and predictable.
An ember that quietly, softly, faded to black without fuss, without fanfare. Just a gentle sigh as it fell into the abyss as they walked away from each other.
With Keith, it had been different. Scratches across his back, the scrape of teeth against his skin, the bloom of soft bruises in the shape that perfectly fit Keith’s mouth. Perhaps it was the inexperience of youth, perhaps it was just that incessant pull between them finally given life, but there’s a curling thought that rises up inside him. Would it be like that now? Would they still fit together the way they once had? Would Keith still consume him in a wall of heat and fire?
The moment stretches and Keith’s gaze meets his, calm and assured, as though he knows exactly what maelstrom is beating inside Shiro’s chest, as though he can hear the thunder of Shiro’s heart.
It’s… unexpected.
It’s not the hopeful look of Keith, slightly smaller, over eager and half starved, no, this Keith looks at him as though he knows exactly what he’s doing and now it’s Shiro that falters.
He can’t seem to find his voice, so he gets up and leads Keith outside, to the shed towards the back of the block wordlessly. Keith doesn’t hesitate to follow.
“I can’t believe you kept it,” Keith says quietly when he sees it.
“Of course, I did. Although I haven’t ridden it in years. I tried to take Matt out not long after we were married once but… ah, it didn’t go well. Dust and deserts and the outdoors in general aren’t really his thing.”
He watches the way Keith moves around it, one hand caressing the hoverbike’s glossy red chassis how Shiro imagines he would a lover. A brush of a fingertip, the smooth stroke of a palm, as though he was scared to press too hard in case it all vanished in smoke.
He wishes Keith would touch him like that. The thought rushes through him, wild and painful before Shiro can push it away.
Keith pauses, long fingers curl over the handlebar and a glint in his eye that Shiro hasn’t seen in ten years. “How much have you had to drink?”
The question hangs heavy in the air then Shiro’s lips curve.
“Not that much.”
Keith hasn’t piloted a hoverbike in years so he slides onto the space at Shiro’s back, relieved he thought to ride his bike and clad warmly in his riding leathers.
He remembers the first time they did this, how he’d been too short to see anything over Shiro’s shoulder, how he’d clung for dear life for the first few minutes until he let the fear catch on the wind and there was nothing left behind but a wild, exhilarating blaze.
Then Shiro had taught him to fly his own and they’d spent hours hurtling through the canyons outside the garrison’s barracks, until Shiro had bought his own, this one, a sweet glossy red that caught the eye as it kicked up dust. It was more powerful than the garrison’s models and Keith had been happy to slide into the driver’s seat and have Shiro curl at his back in the final weeks before Kerberos.
The road out of the city carries them towards the desert, towards the red expanse that fades into blue sky as twilight falls. Shiro promises to keep it short, just a quick spin out to the airfields and back, no dust to coat their skin, he jokes.
There’s dust, there’s always dust but now there was Shiro too and Keith breathes him in under the whip of the wind.
Keith enters the diner first, pushing open the door and heading confidently to one of the booths on the far wall. It looks out onto the car park but it’s private and he slides onto the red vinyl seats with ease.
God, this place hasn’t changed a bit.
“Isn’t this our old spot?” Shiro asks, eyebrow raised. He’s not talking about the diner, but the booth Keith choses. Keith offers him a sharp grin before he picks up the menu.
“Yep.”
“We really are taking a trip down memory lane today, huh?”
Keith chuckles at that but he hides his face behind the menu. Shiro shifts on the vinyl, sitting directly opposite Keith, their knees knocking under the table. If this was their spot, and he’s pretty sure it is, it should be… there it is.
On the edge of the table, carved into the wood are their initials.
“I don’t believe it,” he laughs, a strange prick against his heart. Keith puts down the menu and looks at him curiously. “It’s still here.”
“What is?”
“Remember that day I was late and you were bored and I came back to you vandalizing the furniture?”
Keith’s eyes flash in recognition. “Yeah?”
“It’s still here.”
“Get out,” Keith rolls his eyes, clearly disbelieving. “They would have remodelled this place three times over in the past ten years.”
Shiro glances around. It’s a little more modern, sure but it’s still a lot like how he remembers it. “It is. Here,” he pats the seat beside him. “I’ll show you.”
Keith hesitates for less than a heartbeat and then he’s sliding in beside Shiro, lean fingers dancing along the edge of the table gingerly until Shiro takes his hand and guides him. Having Keith so close to him makes his heartrate go crazy. He has to resist the urge to lean into him. “You carved it in, I can’t believe you don’t remember it.”
There. Keith’s fingers find it, tracing over the carved in S and K into the wood, scratched through the varnish. It’s hard to see what he’s thinking, he’s sort of stretched across Shiro to reach, his head bowed. Shiro lets go and sits back and a moment later, Keith does the same.
He’s smiling a little. “That’s… that’s kind of awesome it’s still there. Even after ten years.”
“You know, a T would have been easier to carve than an S,” he says. His fingers itch to trace it again.
“I know,” Keith huffs quietly. “But the S was more of a challenge and you were taking so long.”
Shiro stares at his profile, the way his dark hair curls against his cheek and he remembers. He remembers what it was like the first time they came here, then the second and the third and every time after that.
He remembers the last time they were here too, just a few weeks before Kerberos and things got crazy. They had sat side by side, much like they were now, but with hands clasped tightly under the table and heads bowed towards each other. There had been a diamond sparkle of a tear on Keith’s eyelash and Shiro recalled how beautiful and heart wrenching it was to see.
Yes, he thinks faintly as he’s falling. It’s still there.
Keith knows he should probably shift back to the other side of the booth but the waitress comes over before he can slide away and it’s just easier to stay where he was.
“What will it be, boys?”
He blinks. God, it was even the same waitress, though he doubts she would ever remember them.
Shiro orders for them, pancakes and waffles, hot coffee and milkshakes and it makes him laugh.
“I’m not a kid anymore,” he says, giving Shiro a playful nudge with his elbow. It’s been so easy to fall back into the comradery they’ve always had, as though it had never really gone away. Shiro had always been the one person he could breath clearly around. The one person he could let down his guard with and stand down his spark.
“It’s for me,” Shiro informs him haughtily but with the flash of a smile.
Later, licking sticky syrup from his fingers he realises Shiro is watching him, half turned in, an elbow resting on the table where the plates are shoved away and back against the wall. The space between should feel wider, but he’s so finely attuned to every motion Shiro has that it feels like their auras are melding together.
“Remember that time you tried to go for a record and ate twelve waffles in a row?” Shiro asks. The smile on his lips is soft, lost in a memory.
Keith falls in after him.
“Remember when you flew us off a cliff and I had to vomit into the dirt afterwards?”
Shiro’s lips twitch. “That was a training exercise. I was trying to teach you something.”
Keith laughs at that. It’s rich and warm and floods him all over, coming from a part inside him he rarely flayed wide. This place, the hoverbike outside… Shiro. He remembers things he hasn’t let himself think about in years, flickers of memory that were too painful to keep revisiting so he stored them away under lock and key.
But he lets them out now, Shiro’s smile illuminating the way.
Shiro’s reluctant to go home when they step outside into the night air. The sky is has deepened to velvet, sprinkled with glitter and Keith’s eyes glimmer in the reflection off the diner’s neon signs. He seems reluctant to go too, the both of them walking slowly towards the bike as it rests on its belly on the gravel of the parking lot.
Keith pauses, a pair of fingerless gloves half tugged on, the easy warm in his face somehow faded. He stares out over the highway, cars and trucks leaving streaks of light as they hurtle down it.
He looks pensive and the crease between his brows is one that Shiro itches desperately to smooth away.
God, he wants this. He wants his so badly.
Ten years ago, it had been Kerberos.
Now, it was the knowledge that he would be risking not just his heart, but his son’s as well. Because he knew… he knew without a shadow of a doubt what ever happens with Keith, it would be something that would be irreversible and unshakable, a stain that would sink so deeply into the core of them.
And Shiro… ten years ago, he’d been a hard sell then with his heart in the stars but Matt had understood that because his was there too. And so was Keith’s. But now, it wasn’t just his heart he needed to safeguard and doesn’t Keith deserve better than that? No matter what he feels for Keith, Luca will always come first. It would mean Keith being sidelined in his own relationship.
No. Keith deserved better. He deserved someone who would meet that passion that stirs inside him, who could pick through his walls and tear them down. And keep them down.
Who would love him first and foremost above all others.
It chokes him. It’s enough to break him. Another missed chance.
“I don’t want to go back,” Keith says in the darkness. He looks over at the highway now, the shadows capture him. Shiro feels like he’s already losing him. It hurts more than anything ever has, even though he expected it, prepared for it, steeled himself against it. It still leaves him breathless and bleeding in the dirt.
“I don’t want to either,” Shiro hears himself say. He knows his voice sounds rough, his throat tight. If Keith notices, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
“Then let’s not,” Keith says. “Not yet.”
Then he turns his head and the moonlight catches in his eyes and Shiro is reminded vividly of spinning in zero G, weightless and full of wonder and his heart racing so hard he can taste it on his tongue.
He wants to be selfish. He wants to keep this small thing between them close and cherish the scraps of what might have been something truly incredible.
Keith stares at him in the darkness, a familiar set to his chin that Shiro knows means he is seconds away from throwing down a challenge Shiro will be powerless to refuse.
But he’s never been able to refuse Keith. Not even when he should have.
“Think we can find it?” Keith asks him. “The shack?”
Shiro struggles to swallow past the lump in his throat. The memory washes over him, flitting and sharp, tearing open his chest. “In the dark? Might be hard. It’s been a long time.”
Keith considers that. Calm and measured. He really is a man now, an equal in every possible way. The pride in him still licks around the corners.
“A hotel, then.”
Blood roars in his ears and for a moment, for a single, agonizing beat, his heart stops.
Keith watches him, unflinching in the streak of light of a pair of headlights as a car streaks past. Shiro’s hands clench then he forces himself to be brave. He slides closer, just as Keith leans in.
Their foreheads bump, the warmth of Keith seeping into him through the touch of his hand, the warm puff of breath against his cheek. He smells different, a new kind of shampoo perhaps, or soap that Shiro doesn’t recognize. Something about that makes him sad, and the realisation slides in that as much as he thought he knew who Keith was, he only knows the memory of him. The way he used to be.
This Keith, this older version, this self-confident, quiet and patient version… this was the Keith he would like to have got to know. This was a Keith that didn’t need him and he’s not sure whether to be glad or selfishly sad by that.
“You’ve really grown into yourself,” he says without really meaning to. His smile is rueful.
“Because of you,” Keith says. The warmth of his breath skitters over Shiro’s cheek. He catches a hint of cinnamon. “You’ve gave me some good advice. Without you, my life would have been a lot different.”
“No,” Shiro protests softly. Their fingers lace together and his thumb rubs gently over the back of Keith’s palm. “No, you did it all on your own. I’m proud of you.”
Keith’s hand tightens against his fingers, the gentle pressure telling Shiro Keith is just as affected. He’s not sure who moved first but there’s a shift, a sweet nudge and then their lips slide together, the contact as sweet and special as their first kiss more than a decade ago.
Maybe he can have him for a little while. Maybe just for this weekend.
The universe owed them that.
Keith curls his hands against Shiro’s waist, the desert whipping past them on the long stretch of road. It’s black out here, black like ink but it wasn’t dark. Not the dark, empty void of the space between stars, not the cold like there was up tucked away behind Venus, hidden from the sun. There’s light here enough that it illuminates the asphalt under them, lights of a motel in the distance that beckons them.
They could go back to the city, they aren’t really that far, back to Shiro’s place, or his, but somehow those options feel too weighty. Better to find a neutral ground, better to find something without permanence they couldn’t keep falling back into.
The door clicks shut and the sounds of the highway not far away fade into the night. The room is lit by a small lamp in the corner, the shades drawn. The bed in the centre of the room suddenly feels like an altar and Keith turns on Shiro with all the intentions of prostrating himself before him.
He doesn’t know if he’ll get this chance again. He doesn’t expect it. The way the world turns hasn’t been kind to them.
And Shiro has never been truly his.
“How do you want to do this?” Shiro asks quietly, taking a step towards him. Keith’s entire body feels weak, shaky, as though he’s going to vibrate into stardust and be carried away on the wind. He’d settle for being carried away by Shiro instead.
Shiro takes another step forward then he stops, the hesitation in his eyes the one thing that suddenly propels Keith forward. Propels him because damn it, he wasn’t going to let this pass by his fingers, not again. Not this time.
His legs are long now. Long and powerful and he crosses the space between them with force and a glint in his eye that has Shiro’s brows raising in surprise. Keith only catches a glimpse of it before he’s pulling Shiro in, one hand curled behind his head and pulling him close to slant his lips against Shiro’s, to breath him in and taste him, to lick the syrup and taste of coffee from his tongue.
Shiro staggers one step backwards under the onslaught but it’s barely a breath before he braces his feet and kisses Keith back and Keith’s blood sings. It sings and ignites and the lump in his chest he calls a heart explodes in a spray of sparks, the charred pieces falling aside until there’s nothing but raw, pink flesh underneath.
Oh god, he thinks as Shiro meets him, kiss for kiss. Oh god, this is going to hurt when we walk away tomorrow.
He pushes the thought aside, fingers sliding over the material of Shiro’s shirt. Sliding and plucking and tugging it away until there’s nothing but smooth bare flesh against him. In the low glow of the lamp, Shiro’s skin gleams gold and Keith spots the same tiny beauty marks that adorn one shoulder. He remembers tracing them with a finger, then later with a biro and Shiro trying to swat him away.
God you even have constellations on your skin, he’d laughed, seventeen and trying to make Shiro notice him. Notice him as more than just a kid. You really are made of stars.
He kisses them now, softly and reverently and Shiro’s hand lies heavy in his hair.
“I remember,” he says quietly and Keith’s voice is too choked to respond. He pulls his head back and hooks his fingers against the back of Shiro’s neck and pulls him into another kiss, his mouth making the shapes as he kisses them into Shiro’s skin.
He was always better without words anyway.
Shiro buries himself in Keith over and over, years worth of emotion and need colouring the entire world behind his eyes. Even in the dark, he sees shifting stars and hears the echoes of a hundred whispers spoken from their hearts.
Then Keith flips him over and he’s keening into the mattress in way he hasn’t for years, revelling in a burn he hasn’t had for years. Keith takes what he wants, ravenous in the way he’s always been, demanding in the way Shiro remembers. He had always loved that about Keith, that fierce steak he wore like a badge of honour. Keith curls his fingers around Shiro’s wrist, pinning him to the bed, a hand at his throat that slides up to capture his jaw. Keith forces him to meet his stare when he reaches his climax and floods his body with heat.
It’s a moment in time, an echo of something old and precious, a whisper of what could have been and when Keith looks away, dark hair flopping over his eyes and shrouding them in darkness, Shiro feels something prick horribly at the back of his eyes.
“I missed you, you know,” he says later in the early hours. Words that had been sitting at the back of his throat since the gala. Words that carried the sting of tears and regret with it. “When we went to Kerberos, and when we got back and all the missions in between. I thought about you all the time.”
“I know,” Keith answers simply. He curls around Shiro tightly, fingers digging into his skin as though worried Shiro is going to disappear. It’s the most anchored Shiro has felt in a long time.
They have found their way back. They have found their way back to the quiet space between them they’ve always shared, the thing that had always made them special. It was raw and honest and devoid of pretence. He’s never found it with anyone else, not like this. “I missed you too.”
The silence feels heavy between them, filled only by the steady tick tock of the clock on the far wall. Keith watches him with those dark eyes, a myriad of emotion flitting across them in the lamplight. He’s still so beautiful it makes Shiro’s breath snag against his chest. The longing wells up inside him again, a maelstrom he was so tired of trying to beat against.
He loved Keith. He always had. There was always a part of him that belonged to Keith, tucked in there amongst all the love he had for his son, for Matt, for his family.
But that was the thing about love, wasn’t it? The only thing in the universe that was infinite and unquantifiable. He wanted to give Keith what had always been his.
The tick of the clock grows louder, a cold reminder he can’t turn back time.
“Keith,” he whispers brokenly, just an ache in his chest. “I’m sorry.”
Keith’s eyes shine but they’re sad. “I know,” he says. He unfurls enough to reach for Shiro’s hand. He’s always had strong hands and when he presses their palms together, a flash of a memory claims Shiro again. The two of them sitting in the dark on the roof of the garrison, long after curfew but neither caring because they only had days left. Shiro had wanted to soak up as much of Keith as he could. Keith presses their palms together again now. “I am too.”
He wants to keep this. He wants to shift and meld the panels of his life so he can. He wants Keith to come to him night after night, to be able to lay him down and mouth along his skin.
Then morning comes, his phone trills, and he remembers why he can’t.