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Keith woke with a sudden start, pulse thumping in his throat. Strawberries he thought to himself. Shiro's shampoo smells like strawberries.
His dreams lately mostly started out pleasantly, but ended up waking him in a cold sweat with tears in his eyes.
He'd been laying with Shiro on a blanket out on the cliffs, the place where you can see across the desert for miles and the sky always looks like an endless sea of blue. Shiro had called it their spot, and they went as often as they could get away from the Garrison. He had turned away from the sky, toward Shiro, only to find him already gazing back at him longingly.
Their lips met softly at first and then quickly turned more insistent. Shiro gently rolled Keith onto his back, not breaking their heated kisses in the shuffle. He rested with his legs framing Keith's hips, supporting himself on his elbows as he started trailing open-mouthed kisses down Keith's face to his throat. His pulse quickened with his desire as Shiro bit down just the right side of too hard and laved over the reddened skin with his tongue.
Keith turned his head to breathe in the comforting and familiar smell of Shiro's shampoo… and smelled nothing. He couldn't remember what it was supposed to smell like. Shiro looked up from kissing Keith's neck when he sensed his distress, but he wasn't wearing his street clothes anymore. He was in his flight suit. The one he would have been wearing under his spacesuit at the launch. His skin began to blister and crack, but he was still smiling at Keith.
“Baby, what's wrong?” Keith wanted to scream in horror or pull away from him, but he couldn't make himself move. “What's the matter, Keith?” Shiro said, his face began to swell and icicles started appearing in his hair. The peaceful desert skyline faded from view and was replaced with the inky blackness of space. “Don't you miss me? Isn't this what you want? Keith?” That's when he'd woken up.
He threw off the covers and grabbed Shiro's jacket from the makeshift coat hook (a rusty nail he’d pounded into the rotting wood with the handle of his mother's knife) in the attic of the shack he'd been living in. He went back to the bed (a dirty mattress he'd tried his best to clean and then threw on the floor and covered with a stolen sheet) and wrapped its familiar weight around his chest.
It had been just over 8 months since Keith had last seen Shiro, standing tall and proud for the cameras. That made it almost 5 months since they’d announced the mission failure. 2 months since he’d walked out of Iverson’s office and driven off into the night on Shiro’s bike. 8 months and he was already starting to forget the little things. He felt his throat constrict as tears streamed their way down his face.
He grabbed the notebook he always kept by his bedside and flipped to the next blank page. Shiro uses strawberry shampoo. He scrawled almost illegibly. His hands were shaking. Tiny droplets stained the pages as he wrote. His eyes are gray and blue like the sky before a winter storm. He always smiles with the left side of his mouth more than the right. He likes to fold his undershirts but not his socks or underwear. Keith set the book and pen aside for a moment and tried to hold in the sob that was threatening to escape his heaving chest. He balled the jacket up and held it to his face for a few breaths. He picked up his pen again.
I can’t remember what brand of deodorant or aftershave he wears but he always uses cinnamon toothpaste instead of mint. He likes my hair long so he can brush it out of my face when we talk. His hands are so soft because he always wears gloves when he lifts and his favorite lotion smells like almonds. He
Keith let the pen scratch an angry black line down the page.
He’s gone. He’s not coming back and someday I’ll forget all of this and I can’t
Shiro
I can’t
Please come back
Please don’t be dead
He threw the notebook across the room and then the pen just for good measure. His shoulders shook as he tried to keep from making any noise as he cried. After a moment he realized that it didn’t matter. He was alone out here, miles from any other living soul. He grabbed Shiro’s jacket and held it to his face as he yelled as loudly as he could. He screamed and cried until his throat was raw and his shoulders felt like lead. When he finally tired himself out and fell into a fitful slumber, he dreamt of strawberries.