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Keith's entire body went hot. The imagine in front of him was almost too much to even process. Lance, untouchable ethereal Lance who he had sworn to protect, and in that, sworn to keep his hands off, laid out on his back entirely exposed.
It was Keith’s dearest dream manifested as a real-life nightmare.
“Keith!”
Shiro burst through the door, nearly knocking into him and already too late to stop the minor implosion happening in Keith’s brain.
Lance still hadn’t said anything, instead he was not so subtly trying to clean himself off, to tuck himself back—nope.
Was he actually supposed to stand here and watch this? And with Shiro in the room?
How could he, when just seeing Lance smile or Shiro pass him his tea in the morning was enough to have Keith’s heart beating nearly out of his chest?
So, he did the only thing he could do: run.
Keith ran as far and as fast as his legs would carry him, ignoring Shiro’s startled yelp as he shoved him in his haste.
He wanted to run until nothing looked familiar, except everything in the damn castle looked familiar. Lance ran all over the stupid thing like if he didn’t see every nook and cranny each week it would disappear.
Instead, he settled for Lance’s least favorite reading spot, tucked away where the light was least and the cushions were threadbare and dust covered.
It was a struggle, not to think about what he had seen. Every time he got his mind onto something else it inevitably led to Shiro or Lance again and then full circle to Lance sprawled back in his sheets, pants kicked down barely enough to expose himself, shirt rucked up and—
Keith snarled, curling in on himself even more as his frustration grew so big he could barely contain them. He wanted to rip and claw and fight these feelings until they didn’t exist. His whole body was hot, not just with lust, but with the turmoil of softer emotions he had tried to stamp out over the past month.
He was still curled up like that when Shiro found him, panting slightly as if he had run through every corridor and hallway just to find Keith.
“Am I in trouble?”
Shiro’s face softened instantly as he took the empty space beside Keith and gathered him up into his arms.
“What are you doing?”
Keith felt stiff and awkward even as he let Shiro arrange him so he was tucked into the larger Galra’s side and could hide his face in Shiro’s neck.
“I’m hugging you.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
Keith thought about that for several long minutes and Shiro, thankfully, stayed silent and didn’t press. Finally, he spoke in the smallest voice possible, muffled by the fur and collar at the crux of Shiro’s uniform.
“No. Please don’t stop.”
So, Shiro held him tighter, drawing him as close as possible until Keith gladly thought he might suffocate in the hold and never have to deal with his feelings.
But, eventually, Shiro loosened his grip enough to let Keith breathe. He cleared his throat, but didn’t say a word.
“I like him.”
Shiro’s body moved slightly as he nodded to show he was listening.
“And you. I like him and you. Romantically, I mean.”
Shiro’s laugh rumbled through where they were pressed together and Keith tensed, waiting for rejection or some form of humiliation.
Instead, Shiro kissed the top of his head and ran his hands soothingly up and down Keith’s back.
“I know you do. I feel the same way about you two.”
What was Keith supposed to say to that?
He had always been more physical than emotional. Words definitely didn’t come to him as easily as they did Lance or even Shiro. He settled on wrapping his own arms around Shiro’s torso, holding him as much as Shiro was holding him in return.
Shiro let him stay like that in silence, processing the new information just like he always did when Keith was feeling overwhelmed by emotion.
At one point, there was the sound of Altean soldiers moving through the halls, their boots clicking on the tile and voices loud and boisterous as they moved by and Keith thought for sure Shiro would tell him to move. But Shiro held him even then, cuddling him closer until the noise had passed and he was sure Keith would stay where he was.
“What are we going to do now? I can’t act like that never happened…”
Shiro hummed in agreement. There was definitely no undoing that little incident, not that Shiro wanted to.
“I was thinking I might court you, and that we would court him, together.”
Keith’s arms fell away from Shiro’s waist in shock. He pulled back to check if Shiro was joking, but all he could see was the sincerity he knew so well shining back at him.
When Keith nodded, still dumbstruck, Shiro grinned and slid off the bench to his knees at Keith’s feet.
“Keith Kogane, would you permit me to court you?”
“I don’t want a bear carcass.”
The words fell out before he could stop them. Thankfully, Shiro was so used to Keith he just laughed and took his hands in his anyway.
“I was thinking something a little less Galra, and a little more Altean, given the circumstances.”
Oh, well…that would be okay. Even though he would absolutely never admit it except under pain of death, and even then, probably not, but Keith enjoyed receiving gifts. Altean courting rituals were rife with gifts…not that Keith had ever looked it up, of course.
“Should I…should I court you, too?”
Shiro’s smile could have blinded him as he surged forward and kissed Keith for the first time. It was clumsy, their fangs clicking together a little painfully before they found their rhythm.
“If you want.”
The words were barely a whisper, ghosting across Keith’s lips like a promise already fulfilled.
When Keith nodded, Shiro rewarded him with another kiss, this one slower and with a little more finesse.
They stayed there, in their little alcove, trading kisses until Lance’s voice echoed down the hall, calling their names.
Shiro held his hand until the very last minute before Lance came into view.
When Lance smiled at them, Keith thought, for once, maybe it would all work out in the end.