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I love you. It repeats, over and over, in Keith’s mind, quicker than he has ever managed to say anything in Japanese before, more practiced, more polished, more beautifully than Keith has ever spoken.
It’s Shiro. He’s the one saying it.
And, somehow, Keith can hear it.
The man is unconscious, Keith holding vigil over him, Allura and his mother and the wolf watching them, but Keith knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shiro is saying I love you over and over like a broken record, like an ear worm he can’t get out of his mind. Like he’s desperate to say this, alive again to do so.
Keith would like to imagine Shiro saying it to him. He knows that’s not how life works.
He tells no one.
The repeating continues, growing stronger, louder, more pronounced, once Shiro is settled in to the back of Black. When Shiro wakes from sleep, sometimes, it quiets, as if Keith can only hear his thoughts when Shiro has no control over them. But mostly Shiro sleeps, so Keith hears the I love you chorus. He hears it clearly in Shiro’s voice, always somehow deeper in Japanese, like an instrument being played. It’s practiced and refined and elegant; Keith knows Shiro had a privileged upbringing. Didn’t think you’d be able to hear it in someone’s voice.
In someone’s thoughts.
If Keith doesn’t focus on whom Shiro is so desperate to tell this to, he can pretend it’s him. He saved Shiro, after all. He’s always saved Shiro, just as Shiro’s always saved him. And he told Shiro, that he loves him.
Fuck, he loves him desperately.
Eventually Keith starts to sleep next to Shiro, laying across his chest from his seat beside him. He grows bolder, pressing against Shiro’s side, no arm in the way, and lays his head on Shiro’s chest. Feels the rise and fall of it. The rumble of it. The beating of a heart, desperate to voice what it feels.
Krolia says nothing, bless her. Simply kisses his cheek and moves to another lion.
Tonight Keith is brazen like he used to be, once upon a time. He stretches out beside Shiro on the bed — over the blanket! — because he can’t take being away from him, and he can’t take another night of sleeping half sitting, half slumped over.
It’s not like he hasn’t done this before. After “the breakup,” as he thinks of it, Shiro had a few nights where he didn’t want to be alone. He never said that, because that would have been too direct and vulnerable, but it had been clear to Keith who knew Shiro better than any man ever could, he’s sure of it. He’d seen how Shiro didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want Keith to leave, and they’d cuddled in bed with Shiro sighing something wet in his throat that Keith would never ask about. Instead he’d pressed against Shiro, closer, as if he could be absorbed into the larger man and comfort him from within, never leave him to be alone.
They were both so afraid of being alone.
So Keith thinks nothing of it when he dreams of them, together. He always has, though since Shiro came back to him, the dreams have been all happy. Dreams of potential. Dreams echoing what the space whale maybe showed would be. Could be.
It takes a few nights, because of the familiarity of it all, for Keith to realize the dreams are in Japanese. Japanese too good for him to know, but Japanese he knows is correct. Japanese spoken only in Kyoto, only by those who stick to a forgotten dialect.
That’s when Keith realizes he’s seeing Shiro’s dreams.
They’re together, in Kyoto, judging by the clothes and surroundings. Maybe it’s a festival of some kind, everyone dressed in traditional garments, or maybe that’s just what Shiro likes to imagine. Maybe the man who lived in standardized uniforms and flight suits dreamed of flowing silks and dangling sleeves. It’s endearing, in a way only Shiro is.
In Shiro’s dreams, Keith says things in long strings of Japanese, like he does in English when his brain can’t stop and the words vomit from his mouth as Shiro sits patiently as if Keith wasn’t making a fool of himself. Keith speaks with the same passion in the dreams, the same intensity, Shiro laughing deep and wonderfully. It’s even more bizarre because he sees the dream from Shiro’s perspective, sees himself as Shiro sees him, dressed in garments Keith cannot name with an ease Keith has never had. Beautiful, in a way Keith has never been.
Keith often wakes crying.
Shiro doesn’t wake during the days, not that Keith sees at least, so he can’t tell him what’s happening. And Keith should feel guilty about that but doesn’t, because Shiro loves someone and Keith needs to protect himself, brace himself, for that. Needs to not see what he wants to, while also taking what he can.
Then one night there’s a little girl in the dream. A little girl Keith has seen before though never heard speak, never seen up close. She runs to them and, though in the dream Keith has no scars, apparently Shiro still only has one arm. She runs happily to them, and throws her arms up, and Shiro lifts her with ease. She giggles, and throws her arms around him, and sighs Oton, and Keith knows what that means without needing to be told, can hear it in her voice and feel it in Shiro’s sigh: Daddy.
She reaches out, for Keith, who smiles and takes her and holds her close. She laughs O-tōhan and Keith wakes with a start.
Shiro loves him.
Shiro loves him.
Fuck fuck fuck.
There’s maybe a second child, in Shiro’s dreams, a baby, but normally it’s just the girl. She cuddles in between them, while her fathers talk of nothing. Keith yearns for how domestic and boring it is. No piloting, no space, no aliens or coalitions or wars. Just two men and their child, sitting on a bench in a park, looking at a distant shrine.
The savior of the universe, the champion of the arena, the leader of Voltron, and this was what he wanted. This is what he was fighting for.
Keith sees the dream even when he’s awake now. He wants it too. Wants it so much.
Typically Keith takes his time off duty to stare at Shiro, because Takashi Shirogane is the most beautiful being in the entire universe and Keith can never drink him in enough. The scars, his hair, the missing arm, they all add to it because Shiro is a fighter, Shiro is a survivor, Shiro is alive and in his bed and in love with Keith.
Who has been in love with him for years.
Which is how Keith is there, sat facing Shiro, studying the lines of his shoulders, when Shiro stirs. Not like in his sleep, when he’d readjust this foreign body and settle back in and move his mouth but make no sound — Shiro’s eyes flutter open, eyes that are soft and out of focus and the most incredible silver gray. His eyes open and his mouth moves and a sound comes from his throat, his head turning to find something, someone.
There’s a moment of stunned processing while Keith’s brain takes this all in before it clicks. He leans over him, brushing his hands along Shiro’s cheeks and shoulders and arm, whispering, “I am here, Takashi,” because he knows that much Japanese. “You are safe, Takashi.” Shiro used to comfort him with those words, over and over; Keith could never forget them.
He whispers, over and over, until Shiro settles and smiles and his eyes blink up at Keith’s face and he sighs one word, “Keith,” like his name is Japanese, ke-i-tu. Like his name is a prayer.
Keith has had time to think about this moment. He has had time to play through all the worst case scenarios his negative brain could come up with, all the ways he could fuck this up, all the ways he could have somehow misunderstood Shiro dreaming of them sharing a child, sharing a life. None of it matters, when the time comes, because Shiro is the one who carefully prepares — Keith is the one who goes in head first, and that’s somehow kept him finding Shiro, so fuck it.
“Takashi,” and he leans down, as close as he dares, feeling Shiro’s breath against his skin, “I love you.” Those eyes go wide, his mouth open, stunned, as if he hadn’t said this before. And Keith feels dread flood his system, dread different than how it normally feels, but he can’t stop, he can’t recant. “I love you, Takashi Shirogane.”
Shiro’s mouth moves a little before his brain seems to kick in, his thoughts repeating I love you again like it has for days now. “I love you,” Shiro forces, giving voice at last to what he’s wanted to say for so long. “I love you, Keith Kim. I love you.”
“I love you,” Keith manages as his throat closes and his chest tightens and his eyes grow wet, and Shiro’s body feels the same, Keith can tell somehow, and then Shiro is shocked staring up at him as if he can tell Keith can tell. As if he is hearing Keith’s thoughts. “Takashi,” and it’s not what he meant to say — he meant to explain, as if he understands — but it’s what he said so he goes with it, leaning down to press his lips to Shiro’s, to feel Shiro press back against him. To lean down, chest to chest, and feel Shiro’s happiness and relief flood him as Keith lets go of agony and fear, of the heartbreak of letting Shiro go to Kerberos, of letting Shiro go to the sea of space, of letting Shiro go again and again and again.
An arm wraps around him, catching Keith off guard, and he feels Shiro’s relief flood him in return. He feels Shiro’s confusion and gratitude and desperation and need and fear, fear that somehow he’s misunderstood, fear that somehow this isn’t real.
“This is real,” Keith murmurs, pulling back only enough to form the words, his lips still brushing Shiro’s. “This is real, you are safe.”
“Keith?” His name says it all, Keith kissing him again and again and again, Shiro’s thoughts slowing as he relaxes into him. “Keith.”
He needs to tell him. He needs to tell Shiro, so Shiro knows. It’s unfair to not.
“Keith?” That’s the American pronunciation of his name, Shiro looking up at him with eyebrows drawn together.
“Oh.” So: confirmed that Keith can hear Shiro’s thoughts, and Shiro can hear his. Well, maybe that’s more fair than just one way.
“Keith, what–” but he winces in pain that Keith feels, his right arm throbbing at the amputation point, where what remains of the prosthetic is exposed to air and blanket.
“Let me–”
“Keith–”
“I can–“
“Keith.”
“What if–”
“Keith!” Keith freezes immediately, a knee jerk reaction to Shiro’s officer voice. It turns him on to no end, which he sees Shiro realize. “Keith?”
“So,” he begins lamely, “funny story, depending on how you squint. I, uh.” Keith is seventeen again, awkward at Shiro making an off-the-cuff comment about making out with a man when he was Keith’s age. Keith had never actually said, one way or the other, who or what he liked, and Shiro had never made any assumptions. The comment had been a self-deprecating joke, after Keith had embarrassed himself, but it had forced Keith to realize Shiro was in fact a sexual being who had needs and desires, who had been with men in a way Keith wanted to be with him.
“Oh?” Shiro is studying Keith carefully, like he always has when Keith is quiet and unsure.
“You heard all that, didn’t you?” Maybe Shiro experiencing it would make it easier for Keith to explain whatever the fuck was going on.
“I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable.” Of course Shiro hadn’t, Keith has always known that, and if he’d said something, Shiro would have apologized and held back after that day. “I– Keith? Why can I…–” Keith can physically see the gears turning in Shiro’s mind.
“Yeah, so, we appear to be,” and Keith shrugs, Shiro nodding. “I wasn’t sure if you could hear my thoughts, since you’ve been out of it so I couldn’t ask. But I’ve, uh, I’ve… been able… to… hear yours.” His voice is small by the end, embarrassed that he couldn’t stop it, upset on Shiro’s behalf that he invaded his privacy, relieved to be able to finally have Shiro here to discuss this with instead of just his dreams–
“Oh!” Shiro’s eyes are wide, moving around as if mentally cataloging what he might have–
“You think in Japanese,” Keith interrupts. Shiro’s mind slows a bit. “I guess I should have known that but had never really considered it, deeply. That’s how I figured out they were your thoughts. My Japanese isn’t that good.” Keith half smiles, Shiro matching him in return.
“I think in English, when I’m doing things in English.” Keith sees Shiro picturing the bridge of the castle, a room filled with officers at the garrison, the hangar where he showed Keith around when they first met.
“But not all the time?” Keith asks, because at this point he desperately needs something vaguely resembling a safe and comfortable conversation, and maybe Shiro does too. Maybe they both need time to process.
“Not when I’m tired, or off duty.” Shiro’s eyes close. “Not when…” and his voice trails off, picturing Keith sat beside him on the floor of his room, at the garrison, after the breakup. One of the nights Keith thought Shiro didn’t want to be alone, so Keith insisted he wanted to stay, because he knew Shiro wouldn’t say no to him. “I never could.”
“What?” Keith realizes he was seeing Shiro’s thoughts again, that in his exhaustion Shiro is dealing with this better than Keith would have.
“I never could say no to you.” Shiro reaches out his hand, Keith taking it and squeezing, and the man before him smiles. “I have loved you for so long in so many ways. I held back, because you were still finding yourself, and having you in my life was more than enough.” Shiro is beautiful in the way he looks at Keith, smiling wider as he feels Keith think that.
“I thought you wouldn’t love me, like that,” Keith confesses. “I was so afraid I’d ruin what we had.” He presses his forehead into Shiro’s uninjured shoulder. “But I heard your thoughts, I heard you saying ‘I love you’ over and over, and I had to try. I had to tell you. Because I knew you wouldn’t push me away.”
“I will never push you away.” Shiro wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulders, and he relaxes against the body beneath him, and sees Shiro picture them in his bed at the garrison, holding Keith close and feeling such comfort from just his presence. “I need you. I love you.”
The rest can wait for another day.
Space is empty, which is normally endlessly frustrating, but Keith finds for once he’s happy about it. He has Shiro, the two alone in Black, and all the time in the universe seemingly. There is no rush.
You look so beautiful. The thought comes out of nowhere.
Thanks?
Shiro chuckles in response, and Keith hears him move from his cot to sit beside Keith, hand on Keith’s knee. “Just thought you should know,” and he leans in to kiss Keith’s cheek, making his face burn, and he sees Shiro admiring his blush, and he sends back his annoyance in return. “This is more fun than I’d anticipated.”
“Fuck off.”
Shiro falls asleep not long after that, missing the argument on the comms about the cow and the wolf, which ends with the wolf popping in to seek comfort from Keith, pausing to sniff Shiro. The wolf gives Keith a look of questioning before Shiro reaches out a hand for him to sniff; the wolf accepts Shiro’s offer, nuzzling against his hand and settling in between his legs.
“Puppy-chan,” Shiro says in his still half-asleep state. The man had no right to be a sex god and champion warrior while also an endearing cinnamon roll.
But he looks so peaceful, leaning against the wall, the wolf asleep with his head on Shiro’s hip. He looks so domestic, it makes Keith’s chest hurt.
They get to have this. And maybe, they get to have the dream too.
Shiro never asks for Keith to elaborate on whatever else he might have seen, in his mind. Keith is grateful but still has a question of his own.
“What is it?” Shiro asks as Keith leaves the bathroom, finding the man already settled in to bed, sitting half propped up against the wall. Fuck, was he naked? The blanket was pooled low around his hips and Shiro was, of course, carved out of fucking marble. “Do you want me to answer that?” Keith simmers with annoyance which makes Shiro smirk. “You’ve been holding back a question.” It’s like how they used to talk, Shiro in Japanese so long as Keith didn’t struggle, Keith responding in some mixture of English and Japanese. Shiro doesn’t draw attention where Keith doesn’t want it to be, and Keith allows him to because he did the same for Shiro.
Sitting beside him — it’s a tight squeeze, sharing the cot, but it feels right to sleep wrapped up under Shiro’s arm and they’ve made it work before — Keith sighs, relaxing his body which was tense in anticipation of this. He leans into Shiro carefully, not wanting to jostle the injured arm, and feels Shiro’s calm filling him.
“You will not scare me away,” Shiro assures. “I made it through you experiencing puberty, and you stank to high heaven.” Keith knows that but doesn’t need the reminder, elbowing Shiro in the stomach half heartedly. But he can’t stay mad at him, his head resting against Shiro’s collarbone, the man’s chin resting on Keith’s head. They slot together perfectly.
“You often dream the same thing,” Keith starts. Shiro tenses momentarily. “It’s not sexual.”
“You don’t know what I’m into.” It’s the same self-deprecating humor Shiro always uses about himself and his sexuality.
“In your dream,” Keith continues, because one of them needs to stay on target and he supposes Shiro has done that enough times in their relationship to earn a break from being The Responsible One, “we’re in Kyoto.” Shiro hmms, and Keith can feel his mind shuffling through half-remembered thoughts, before he pictures a park. “That’s the one.”
“Gyoen,” Shiro explains, smiling to himself. “My mother loved that park. We would go often.” Shiro pictures it and Keith can see how lush and green the trees are, like the desert could never be, and Shiro’s mother who is beautiful like her son, smiling down at him like she couldn’t be happier. “There are shrines there we would visit sometimes. I never asked why there.” Shiro’s sadness at his mother’s passing is stronger for it being shared, but Keith has always understood that. He thinks of his father, and Shiro kisses the top of his head.
Keith savors the kiss, the feeling of being pressed against Shiro, his eyes closing as he pictures the dream, the park, the shrine in the distance. He pictures them sat there, as Shiro had dreamed them. Shiro snorts.
“My mind cannot escape my upbringing.” Keith knows, vaguely, that Shiro’s father was a stickler for traditional Japanese values and customs. “I put you in quite the ensemble.”
“In your dream, we speak Japanese.” Keith cannot imagine the words, cannot hear them without Shiro’s help, but he can imagine enough. He can imagine the little girl, running to them, arms wide.
“Oton! O-tōhan!” She throws herself at them.
Shiro freezes.
Keith looks up into his face, pulling back enough to see him. “You dreamt her, every night.” She wore different outfits, most nights, her clothes changing more than theirs in the dream. But Keith is sure it was always the same little girl, throwing herself at them. “Who is she?” They never say her name.
“I… don’t know.” Shiro swallows hard, and Keith can feel his uncertainty and fear. “I have dreamed of her for years.” Suddenly Keith is in a cell he doesn’t recognize but immediately understands to be Galra, looking at a door where the only light leaks through. “It started shortly after the druids began experimenting on me.” They’re back in Black, Shiro shuddering as if trying to shake off the memory. “I thought it was just my mind doing its best to escape reality. I’ve never thought about it much, while awake.”
Keith reaches out a hand, cupping Shiro’s jaw. “I’ve seen her before,” Keith whispers and that sends Shiro’s mind into a tailspin of what what what what what what what– “On the…” but Keith falters, shaking his head, too much to explain right now. Instead he imagines it, the space whale, Krolia beside him. He shares visions of the past, his vision’s of the past, and then visions of the future. Of him fighting Shiro — fighting the clone — and of the girl running to them in a park more green than the desert could ever be and of Shiro asleep on a couch in a house, his head on Keith’s lap. “I’ve seen the same girl,” Keith finishes, hoping Shiro understands what he cannot explain, about the bend in time in that part of space. After all, they’re sharing thoughts, it’s not like their lives can get weirder.
“They really can’t,” Shiro agrees. “I don’t know who she is. Or, I guess, I do, but I don’t know why I know.” In the low light, Keith feels more than sees Shiro blush. “She’s… ours.” Shiro’s hand cups Keith’s, still on his jaw. “She is ours.”
“Do you know her name?”
Shiro nods. “Hoshiko,” star child. Shiro is beautiful as he smiles and sighs and relaxes against Keith. “Hoshi-tan.” Little star.
They share Shiro’s dream that night, and Keith hears himself calling out for Hoshi-tan.
At this point, there’s not much else they haven’t shared. Which should be frightening but Keith knows he’s always been rather an open book to Shiro, and Shiro apparently has held very little back from Keith, only that which he could not express in English and what his kinks are. It’s how Keith learns, somehow, the limits of Shiro’s English knowledge.
But it’s more than ok; Keith now understands most of what they say, in Shiro’s dreams. Who knew telepathy would help him learn Japanese?
Hey gorgeous. Shiro is much too suave in his mind, which does things to Keith. “Is that so?"
“It is.” Lips press against his skin, just under one ear, and Keith shivers at the sensation.
“Just for you,” Shiro teases, but Keith can feel that under the confidence, there’s still nervousness and fear. There’s baggage from past relationships. There’s the concern he’ll do too much. Be too much.
“I’m the one who’s too much,” Keith corrects him.
“Your mind is calm and your thoughts rather complete,” Shiro retorts and that was actually a strange development, to realize. How Shiro’s mind raced like a fucking hover bike at full throttle, how thoughts ricocheted around like a bouncy ball hurled down an enclosed stairwell. How it mixed in Japanese and English and things beyond words, how it flashed with memories of what had happened and ideas of what might happen, how it circled around and around and around. No wonder Shiro’s mind had repeated I love you for days on end; that had been it in a calm state.
“I will admit,” and Keith flips Black to autopilot so he can focus on Shiro, “I did not realize how hellish your brain would be.” That makes the man laugh.
“Welcome to anxiety, depression, and C-PTSD.” He says it so calmly, no venom, like it’s simply a fact. “It is,” Shiro assures. “My mind has always been like this: I don’t struggle with it, it struggles with me.”
“Maybe you both struggle,” Keith challenges. “How do you get any thinking done?”
“Keith, I ask myself that all the time.”
As a teenager, Shiro had seemed a perfect officer. As his friend, Shiro had been incredible in his understanding and anticipation of Keith’s needs. As his team mate, Shiro had been easy to follow, easy to argue with. And as his… whatever they are, Shiro is incredible beyond belief. He is free and here and honest and vulnerable and Keith loves him more every minute for it.
“Thanks, babe,” and while Shiro clearly had been aiming for another suave comment, Keith can feels his pride at making Keith feel the way he does, can feel Shiro relieved that he’s not too much for Keith. That Keith wants Shiro to be like this, with him. That Shiro has been able to be who Keith needs him to be.
They sit like that, for a while, not saying anything. Shiro reaches for Keith’s hand, and they both watch their held hands as if something might happen. Keith feels how tenderly Shiro cares for him and how much he hopes he isn't a burden; Keith sends back how much it means to him, to be the one tending to Shiro, when he feels like he’s always taken in their relationship.
“I didn’t know,” Shiro finally says, “you still knew Korean.” That is not what Keith expected him to say.
“Come again?”
Shiro cocks his head to one side, like the wolf does when Keith is talking to him, and blinks. “Korean: you dream in Korean.”
“I do?” When he was little, he used to speak Korean with his father. It was their language, when they were home alone, whispering over the kitchen table like conspirators. Or else out in the city, when Keith was frightened and his father would pick him up, holding him close and whispering it’ll be ok in a language no one else knew except them.
At least, it had felt like that.
“Did you stop,” Shiro asks gently, “when he died?” Keith shakes his head, trying to remember, knowing Shiro can see him rifling through the memories. It makes it easier, to explain, because he doesn’t need to say.
“No, we stopped before that, as I went to school. I never really thought about it but… I don’t know how much Korean Pops actually knew.” His father had never really spoken of family, his or Keith’s mother. And Keith had never asked, because his father had been his family, and that had been all he’d needed. “What did I dream of?”
“The park,” Shiro whispers, as if now he is Keith’s conspirator. Maybe he is. “Hoshi was there.”
“Did she speak Korean too?”
“Yes,” Shiro replies with too much enthusiasm in Korean. “I know about seven words of Korean, four of which you used in your dream.”
“What are the other three?”
Shiro’s response is a wink, a memory of his youth and a trip flitting by in his mind; Keith files it away for later.
Keith thinks of his father and the Christmas tree they used to put up, because it was something to do when school was out. Shiro asks what Keith misses the most from the traditions, then dreams of them.
Shiro thinks of his mother teaching him how to draw and paint. Keith asks if he still knows how, which makes Shiro laugh because he was only so good when he had his dominant hand so he’d probably be absolute crap now. In their dream, Hoshi paints like her grandmother.
The memories volley back and forth. It’s intimate in a way, more intimate than Keith images sex is, because these are things too hard to put into words. These are guarded memories of loved ones long gone, or painful moments too vulnerable to give power to with voice, or longing for the one who wasn’t there but is now. Of a life they might one day have.
After four days, Shiro calls Keith his boyfriend in his mind. Keith thrills at that, daring to send back how his crush as a teenager had felt, his fantasies of what might have happened. It ends with Shiro chasing Keith around, even though Shiro has one arm and is still recovering, and Keith is needed to lead the team, but it feels wonderful because Keith had liked the idea of Shiro chasing him after a sparring session, pinning him against a wall and forcing him to look up at him before Shiro kisses him, and all of his teenage dreams come true in that moment when his boyfriend acts them out.
As they near Earth, the connection starts to weaken. Since they don’t know how it started, they don’t know why it’s coming to an end. Maybe it’s because Shiro is nearly fully recovered. Maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, it was nice while it lasted.
“Sweetheart,” Shiro whispers in his ear, pulling him closer in bed, and Keith pushes against him. He wants to be as close to Shiro as he can be, needs him always and forever. Needs Shiro to need Keith. “I do,” Shiro sighs, nose feeling along Keith’s face, so Keith turns his head to kiss him. I always will. I love you.
I love you.
Even as the connection weakens, Keith still feels closer to Shiro than he had before. They’ve been able to express things they couldn’t otherwise. They’ve finally said how they feel. They’ve a future to imagine together, a daughter to raise.
“My love,” and Shiro is gentle in his words, refined and elegant and lovely and everything Keith wants. “My love, I want to show you how much I love you.” Images flash before Keith’s mind, of them making love.
Keith nods, rolling on top of Shiro.
“There is no rush,” Shiro assures, and tonight there isn’t. There’s no rush as they strip each other’s clothing, pressing together and moaning against one another. There’s no rush as Keith feels remnants of the connection, feels himself touching Shiro from both of their perspectives. He’s always felt connected to Shiro and no one else, because Shiro saw him, Shiro saw through him and into his soul when Keith was young and alone and scared, and Shiro comforted him, let him in, returned the vulnerability with his own. Shiro met his ragged edges with his own, and they fit together like the most unlikely broken toys, as if they were always meant to be together.
“Come here,” Shiro whispers so he does, leaning down to lay on his chest, to steal kiss after kiss after kiss, because every moment with Shiro is precious and stolen, he stole Shiro back from death and would do it again in a heartbeat. Keith rocks his hips, rocks himself against Shiro, and Shiro rocks against him, whispering sweet little Japanese nothings.
And Keith, Keith gets to touch him, Keith gets to explore him, map his scars that show how far Shiro would go to get back to him. I’d steal you back from death, Shiro thinks. Wherever you go, I will always follow. It makes him buck down against him, Shiro laughing into their kiss, guiding Keith’s hand to wrap around their erections and stroke them, leaving him to it so his hand can explore Keith’s back and all the scars he now carries too, from the Blades, from the fight, from whatever it took to bring them to here and now.
There’s no rush as they explore, as they feel, as they make love. Keith savors every line of Shiro’s body, and the little sounds Shiro can’t hold back, and the way Shiro’s dick feels in his hand, hot and velvet and thick. Even as the connection weakens, they are connected — and maybe they always have been. Shiro captured Keith in his orbit, Keith has always felt that, but maybe he captured Shiro in his orbit too. Maybe like two stars, they are forever intertwined, bending space and time around themselves. Outside forces might try to pull them apart but they cannot succeed, and whether their rotation around each other is stable or will cause them to collide and collapse into one star doesn’t matter.
Keith wants it all, with Shiro.
“Takashi,” he gasps, stroking faster, Shiro’s arm across his back holding him close. It’s not fair the way Shiro can lick into his mouth, can destroy Keith’s thought processes simply by being and kissing. “Takashi–”
“Don’t hold back,” Shiro breathes against him, his hand slipping under Keith’s to stroke them strongly. “Don’t ever hold back on me.” With both hands free, Keith plants them over Shiro’s shoulders so he can fuck his boyfriend’s hand, so he can look at the man beneath him and forever internalize what this moment was like, how perfect they were together in their imperfectly messy ways. “You are my everything,” Shiro whispers and it dooms Keith, coming hot and sticky between them, demanding that mouth for his to kiss and moan and sigh and gasp. “Everything,” Shiro repeats, releasing Keith to stroke himself between them. Keith has enough left in him to kiss along Shiro’s jaw, his neck, those beautiful broad shoulders, all the places he’s learned the man likes, until Shiro comes between them as well, and they’re both covered in cum but it’s the most amazing feeling in the world somehow. “Keith.”
He might no longer be able to see and feel Shiro’s every thoughts, but he still knows when he looks at him what the man is thinking of. “I love you, Takashi.”
Shiro swallows, and closes his eyes, and breathes out deeply. “I love you.”