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The first few days after re-entry are lost in a buzz of pressers and parades, of viral videos showing Shiro wobbly-legged under newfound gravity and laughing, of interviews and photo shoots, smile nothing short of warm, wide, and winning. He was lucky to be photogenic and handsome, his handlers had told him more than once, and easy to root for; it did most of the work for him.
It takes nearly a week for the excitement to die down, and half of another week after that for Shiro to move back into his small, dusty apartment, which looks positively enormous post-International Space Station. It takes two weeks for his bones to settle into his frame again, their heaviness lost under the weight of everything else. It takes three weeks for him to get off of his couch, where he's spent hours catching up on bad reality tv and ice cream, and find a coffee shop.
It takes three weeks and three days (two hours, 17 minutes, and some seconds that he doesn't bother to know) since re-entry to meet Lance.
—
It's not arrogance that has him donning a baseball cap and sunglasses to leave his apartment. Shiro doesn't think people on the street are going to recognize him the way someone might recognize George Clooney or Brad Pitt. He puts them on because the day is bright and sunny, and his handlers have started chastising him about crow's feet and wrinkles in backhanded compliments about nearing his thirties.
And maybe a part of him does do it because he craves the anonymity of being able to get a coffee without having to be prepared to give a lecture on the vastness of space, the enormity of the galaxy, the scope and scale of human curiosity and his part in humanity’s forward trajectory. Shiro just wants coffee, non-instant, and maybe if he’s feeling fancy, cold-brewed.
“We just ran out of cold brew,” says the barista apologetically. “Hunk got our last cup.” The barista—Lance, reads the tag on his shirt, with a little golden star drawn next to it—nods over at the aforementioned Hunk, a big guy in a corner fiddling on his laptop and looking progressively more and more wrecked by whatever is on his screen. The last of the cold brew is, indeed, next to him.
Being disappointed over coffee is illogical, so Shiro isn’t. “Just regular coffee, then,” he orders instead, “there’s always tomorrow.”
His smile is met by Lance’s, which is brilliant and bright, flanked by dimples and the crinkle of under-eyebags. Their fingertips brush in the transfer of the cup and as Lance leans into his space to give a conspiratorial wink to murmur, “I’ll save it for you tomorrow.” In that second, it feels like it did the precise moment Shiro broke atmosphere, when all the weight went out of the ship, and the world was distant and silent, and before him stretched out the black-blue expanse of space.
What he means to say: Lance is cute.
And Shiro, who has been equipped with media training and Russian language training, military water survival courses, the best education and preparation the military can shovel into one person, is poorly equipped for what it feels like to have a crush. He can feel the heat of a blush creep up his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose, where it must look stark behind the length of his scar, and burn the tops of his ears.
He’s suddenly very glad for his sunglasses, which give him something to hide behind. And glad for the brim of his cap—which he can tug down over his ears. And with that, Shiro, who faced the unknown multitude of the universe with open arms, doesn’t precisely flee, but walks faster than normal away from the coffee shop and from Lance.
—
“Okay, wow,” says Keith, “are you serious?”
He reflects that Keith probably shouldn’t have been the first person that he told. That Matt or Allura would be better, gentler, more prepared to coax him through the steps of nursing a crush; in that same vein, that they would be more merciless in their exploitation of it, more tongue-in-cheeked about it.
Which is why he had called Keith, because Keith had the subtlety of cavemen bashing rocks against each other to make pointier rocks. Keith saw problems and threw himself bodily against them, heedless of the beating he took in the process. Eventually, in his mind, something would have to give—and history had proven that something always gave before Keith did, for better or for worse.
It helped, too, that Keith still looked at him with the rosy glow of a brother-figure; that in different circumstances, Keith would have been up in the stars with him.
“You spoke three words to him, and he spoke three words back, and now you have a crush? How does this work? Are you that bad at people? Is this what space does to people?”
“I saw the same five people for a year, Keith,” Shiro sighs, “forgive me if it’s nice to see someone new.” And before that, even, his friends had been the same class of people for eight years, interspersed with the overwhelming rush of new faces and new names that came with press tours.
“Okay, but most people still don’t go from hi, how are you, to I want to profess my undying love to you in the span of thirty seconds,” Keith points out, probably rightly.
“I just said he was cute.”
Keith’s arms are folded across his chest. The line of his mouth is long and thin, and when he speaks, it’s with a tone of resignation. “Shiro, when you met Allura, you said you admired how strong she was. You never said anything about her being cute. In fact, when someone did call her cute, you told them, and I quote, ‘Allura is a valuable asset to the team, and we’re lucky to have her.’”
Shiro frowns. “She is. We are.”
“Wow,” says Keith, openly gaping at him, “you honestly have no idea, do you? And people say I’m bad at this. They have no idea. Talk to the barista. You’re hopeless, and I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”
“His name is Lance,” he corrects Keith, letting the other comments slide. He’s always known, unlike Keith, how to pick his battles.
“Lance,” Keith repeats, as if a dawning realization is on him, “the barista’s name is Lance?”
“Yes.”
Keith says, with complete sincerity: “We’re doomed.”
—
He makes it back to the coffee shop one month out of re-entry. It takes him time to work up the nerve, to feel right in his skin.
“Cold brew!” calls Lance from the counter, stretching out across it to wave at Shiro. He has the lanky proportions of a college student, maybe just on the opposite side of twenty. Younger than Shiro’s twenty-seven going on twenty-eight (going on thirty, according to his media coaches, wear more sunscreen, drink more water).
The day outside had bloomed grey and cloudy, so there are no sunglasses this time, and Shiro’s traded the baseball cap for a knitted beanie. Recognizable enough, to a certain audience, but only as cold brew to Lance. He finds himself smiling.
“I didn’t catch your name last time,” says Lance when Shiro approaches the counter. He rearranges himself off of it, the awkward gangliness of his limbs dropping and turning into something lithe and liquid. “Did you want a cold brew again? I saved you a cup last time, but you never showed up.”
“In order of questions, it’s Shiro,” he says, “and no, a regular coffee again, and also, sorry that I didn’t. Things came up. I just moved back, so—you know how that is.”
“People to see, places to go?” muses Lance. His sharpie makes squeaking noises against the cardboard cup as he writes out Shiro’s name; against the tail-end of the looping O, he adds in stars, their crossed lines mimicking the one on his own name tag.
“Something like that,” Shiro agrees. His smile is rewarded with one of Lance’s—still bright, still dimpling, and his heart still stuttering staccato in his chest.
He is painfully out of his element—and though he knows the periodic table nearly by heart, Shiro isn’t sure that the element he’s out of is listed on there in the first place. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s the first time, in a long time of regimented courses and drill instructors, that he’s been totally at his own devices.
He’s forced to the realization that his own devices might have rusted from disuse.
“Would you like to get coffee?” he blurts out.
Lance blinks at him. His hand is curled around Shiro’s coffee cup, finger tips stained a slightly darker shade of brown than his skin tone, and behind him are stacked bags and bags of beans. Shiro’s rusty devices grind their gears in all the wrong ways. There’s a pursed moue to Lance’s mouth.
“That was stupid,” he says, leaning against the counter and sighing.
“It was pretty stupid,” Lance agrees, voice warm and teasing. He brushes his stained fingers over the top of Shiro’s hand. “I drink like, so much coffee. I’m probably 85% coffee right now,” he says. “Take me out for ice cream or something. Save coffee for the third date, at least.”
And well, that—that’s something Shiro can do.
—
Shiro meets Keith somewhere between Keith’s third foster home and his fifth new school. At the time they meet, Keith’s hair is buzzed short and regulation, and the tight line of his shoulders say fire and fury, a 150 pound teenage ordnance.
It’s easy to become Keith’s friend, because Keith doesn’t have any, and he craves them with something fierce and dying inside of him.
So when Keith, sitting next to Shiro, a blanket of stars laid out in the sky above them says about Lance, “Be careful,” Shiro knows he means it. The wounded beast in Keith’s chest picked its friends and family carefully and guarded them jealously.
“I will,” he promises.
But Shiro keeps forgetting that the gravity on earth is different than on the moon, and he falls harder than he’d meant to, hits the ground faster than he’d expected. It’s only in hindsight that he realizes this is what Keith was warning him about.
—
Their first date is: hamburgers from McDonald’s in the park, Lance stealing Shiro’s fries (he said they tasted better, despite having his own), and one of the one-dollar ice cream cones, because Shiro’s always been good at retention of information and Lance had wanted ice cream, he said.
He learns this: Lance is the youngest of seven—seven, he repeats, with a wave of his arms for added emphasis—and he’s studying marine biology because once, when he was real little, one of his three older sisters (he doesn’t specify which one) took him to an aquarium, where he learned that sharks in utero would sometimes eat their siblings, which was sort of an appealing thought when you were the youngest of seven. So that was cool, and his sister bought him a stuffed shark when they left, and the rest was history.
And then quieter, Lance adds: the ocean made him feel small, but not in a way that was frightening. It was comforting, actually, to be dwarfed by something so much larger, to mean less than all his anxieties convinced him of; there was comfort in being a speck, of being inessential, of being one tiny, tiny mote of dust. He could mess up, and it wouldn’t ever tip the grander scale.
There is a heartbeat of silence before Lance grins and laughs, shaking off whatever had passed over him. “That was too serious,” he says, “wow, that was way too serious, I’m sorry.”
If Shiro were better with words, he might have said he felt the same in that lurching minute of the shuttle hurtling through the atmosphere. He isn’t better with words though, so he flounders and settles on an awkward clapping of Lance’s shoulders that serves no purpose and does nothing. Lance’s brief, confused smile in response is a little bit heartbreaking—and Shiro flounders more, in its wake.
Lance draws back after a second of silence, leaving a deliberate inch of space between them. His smile goes slightly wooden and he stands, brushing grass and dirt from the seat of his pants. “Hey,” he says, “this was fun, but I should probably get going. Things to do. You know. Shouldn’t hold you up all day.”
He doesn’t know. Shiro is good about knowing things, but this—this isn’t something he knows. But when he opens his mouth to say that, what comes out is: “Yeah. Don’t worry about it. I should get going, too.”
Lance nods, like he isn’t really paying attention, smiles, and leaves. It’s all very brusque and strange; there’s still ice cream in the hamburger bag, melting away.
And Shiro, who has scored perfectly on every exam he’s ever taken, comes to the sudden realization that he’s failed at something, for the first time in his life—completely and utterly flunked.
And he doesn’t know how or why.
—
“Oh, Shiro,” breathes Allura, her accent making a soft blur of her words, “I’m so very sorry.”
She takes one of his hands with both of hers, and her palms are warm and soft. In a different world, he’s probably madly in love with her; in this one, he’s just grateful for the contact and the tea she’s provided, strong and herbal, and her steady presence by his side.
“It was just a first date,” he points out, achingly aware of how miserable he sounds. “Those don’t go anywhere all the time.”
Allura squeezes his hand and gives him a searching look. “But it’s alright to have wanted it to go somewhere,” she tells him, “and it’s alright to feel bad that it didn’t, or to feel as if you lack closure as to why it didn’t. You liked him.”
“I met him three times. I barely knew him.”
There are things Allura could say. Pointed things; not designed to hurt, but to cut away precisely, like a scalpel, to the very core of Shiro. Things like: He’s a private figure living a public life and living a public life that was carefully, systematically, managed. That he so very rarely got to be himself, so very rarely got to be Shiro rather than Takashi Shirogane, the first man in over four decades to step foot on the moon.
She doesn’t say any of those things. Instead, she says, “I’ll put the kettle back on,” and does just that, her form disappearing into the arched entryway of the kitchen.
—
Keith says, “You really don’t know, huh.” The leather of his jacket, today, is red, and his hair is uncombed and unkempt. He looks like he hasn’t slept for a week. Which, at least for Keith, is good in the grander scheme of things.
“Listen,” Keith sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You should just talk to him. I know Lance. He’s an idiot, but not an asshole.”
“I had a bad date,” Shiro says. “It wasn’t even that bad, but he isn’t interested, and that’s okay. I don’t know why everyone is so worried.”
Keith gives him a look that is only partly dark and partly dangerous. He contemplates something, and whatever decision he comes to must not be one he likes, because his words are bitten out and chewed thoroughly when he spits them up. “Lance likes you. More important. Everyone likes you. And everyone wants you to be happy because everyone likes you. But especially fucking Lance, who you just had to go and have a crush on. Who’s an idiot who makes up stupid stories and says I have a mullet. But you like him so. I’ll deal.”
“He left our date,” Shiro points out quietly.
“Because he’s an idiot! How many times do I have to say it? But it wasn’t because he didn’t like you. It’s because he probably likes you so much that he thinks he’s fucking everything up, because he’s had your stupid newspaper articles tacked over his bed for the past year. Which I know, because I’ve seen them, unfortunately.” Shiro opens his mouth—and promptly closes it when Keith holds up a finger. “Shut up, you don’t get to talk except to say ‘Thank you, Keith, I’m going to go ask out Lance McClain because I have no taste.’”
“Thank you, Keith, I’m going to ask out Lance?” Shiro ventures.
“Because you have no taste,” finishes Keith. He rolls his shoulders, like he’s getting rid of heavy weight. “Lance likes you. Lance followed every single dumb thing about your mission with bated breath, and literally teared up during your first interview from the station. So. Yeah. There you go. Have fun.”
The day before Shiro was scheduled to go to space, he had dinner with Keith. They’d gone to a diner off a long, dusty strip of road, and for miles around them there was silence, save for the chirping of crickets. In their quiet booth, Keith had unscrewed the cap from a shaker of salt and spilled it out over the table. Despite the action being deliberate, he picked a pinch of it and tossed it over his left shoulder ritualistically. With what was left on the table, he etched small patterns and waves, and finally, a little sliver of a crescent moon.
Keith said, “I’m used to people leaving and not coming back.”
That was it. He didn’t ask for more, or try to extract a promise. It wasn’t his style, and Shiro wouldn’t have given him one even if he had. Keith had been let down by too many promises before.
They ate their dinner, and Shiro covered the bill. At the end of the night, Keith kissed him, and when Shiro drew him away, Keith laughed and pressed his forehead to Shiro’s chest, right above where his heart lay. “I figured,” he said, and he didn’t sound upset or particularly bothered. After, he ambled his way off into the dark, a slight silhouette that gave way like a mirage into the desert. He wasn’t there to see Shiro off; but Shiro had never asked him to be, either.
—
He finally musters the courage to go to the coffee shop on a blustery Tuesday. Winter roared in the week prior, and the soft powder it had initially brought has turned to hard ice.
Inside the shop, the decorations are decidedly Christmas-themed, red and green ball ornaments hanging down from the ceiling, garland twining around the outside of the counter. The shop is also decidedly-empty, except for Lance, on the wrong side of the counter and dressed down in worn jeans with a sweater, groaning at the guy who took the last of the cold brew the first time Shiro visited behind the counter.
“Hunk,” Lance is saying, “feed me.” The e elongates along a stretched syllable.
“Pay for it, and I will,” is Hunk’s response. “Or get out of the way if you’re not so someone else can order.”
Lance pouts, but folds his limbs back up obligingly. He gives way with an exaggerated bow, bending low at the waist, before straightening up with a grin.
A grin that disappears, quick as it came, when he comes face to face with Shiro.
“Hi,” says Shiro. From the corner of his eye, he catches Hunk’s form turning and making its way into the back room.
“Um. Hi.” Lance says. There’s a flash of—something, across his face. That half-second deliberation of fight or flight, before the more reasonable part of his brain quells the animal instinct. Plus, Shiro’s blocking the door. He may have done that on purpose.
“Did you know,” Shiro says—and he rehearsed this, which makes it better and worse, that he actually practiced this—“that time slows near a black hole.”
“Um,” blinks Lance. “I guess? I was sort of aware of that.”
“I’ve always thought that would be a perfect place to fall in love,” he says. And then, because he’s an astronaut, and not a poet, and practically reigns supreme. “If you could ignore the spaghettification, that is.”
Lance keeps blinking at him. And blinks again. “I—what?” he finally settles on. The hunted flash that crossed his face at first seeing Shiro is gone, replaced by a rising bemusement.
“Spaghettification,” Shiro repeats, “is the stretching that happens in a very strong, non-homogeneous gravitational field. It’s what would happen if we ever stood near a black hole. So it wouldn’t really be the best place to fall in love, because no object can withstand it, but I was told it’s the thought that counts. Time slows there, so falling in love would be more romantic there, I assume.”
“I know what spaghettification is,” Lance says. His brow creases, like he’s sorting through something. “It’s sort of romantic, I guess? Being a noodle isn’t that romantic though. It’s hard to be a sexy noodle.” His bemusement eases into something closer to amused than puzzled. He leans back against the counter, his limbs set at an easy angle. “Any reason you’re telling me this?”
“Because,” Shiro says, and finds the words coming to him easier than he thought they would, “I like you. And I don’t know how I messed up our first date, except that I did. But I like you, Lance. And I’d like to take you out again.”
“Oh,” Lance breathes. “No. I—no.” Shiro’s heart sinks, but before it plunges, Lance grabs his hand, “You didn’t mess anything up. I messed it up! I said all of that stupid stuff about feeling dumb and small and like, overshared by 78% too much on a first date. And I thought you deserved better than me, because you’re Shiro,” and the way Lance says his name isn’t like how most people say it, like Shiro’s a cut above them, but like the word is special to him, “and so I figured I should just. Like. Let it go. It’s like being in love with Prince Charming, but I’m not Cinderella, I’m one of the mice.” He waves his free hand to illustrate his last point.
“I like mice,” Shiro says. When Lance face scrunches, Shiro squeezes his hand and insists. “I do. Mice are really interesting, they’re thought to empathize with the experiences of other mice, and I—I am really bad at this, huh?”
“Yeah,” Lance laughs, “pretty bad.” But he isn’t drawing away, and his expression has crossed over into something soft and fond. He sways a little closer to Shiro, so that Shiro can feel the warmth coming off of him in waves.
“Lance,” says Shiro seriously. He’s good at serious and sincere. “I like you. I do.”
“I like you, too,” says Lance, his mouth curving into a smile.
He realizes how close they are, then, when the curve of Lance’s mouth seems endless, when he realizes that he’s holding Lance’s hand up against his heart, pressed into the warm boundaries of their bodies. Lance is shorter than him, though everything about his build gives the impression of stretch and length, and it’s easy to bend over him and press a kiss against his mouth.
Once, tumbling in suspended free fall in a metal can in space, Shiro had fallen head over heels and kept falling until he smacked up against a wall panel and clutched it for stability. He hadn’t realized it was possible to do the same on earth, figured gravity was enough to keep him grounded. Kissing Lance tosses the notion of gravity out of the window.
Precisely until Hunk clears his throat behind them and says, “I’m still here, guys.”