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Black, more black, and a hint of red leather.
Those were the three things Shiro first noticed about the lithe student on the other side of the cafeteria as he walked towards the courtyard with his tray clutched in his hands. Black draping cardigan over a black tank, paired with torn black jeans and red leather Docs. It was a look very unfitting for the small desert town.
Hell, it didn’t fit in the city that he’d just moved in from.
In fact, it looked like something picked for an alternative fashion line during fashion week.
And with a face like that, Shiro wouldn’t have been shocked if he had been meant for a runway too.
“Who is that?” He breathed as his fingers twitched around the soggy burger the school system had deemed safe for the youths of the future to consume. Tracking each step as the other high schooler pushed the door open with his hip and stepped outside, he barely noticed the annoyed sound his companion made in the back of his throat.
“That?” Lance— or as he had gracefully called himself The Best Welcoming Committee This Side of Paradise— said with something that sounded a lot like vehemency. He turned to Shiro with his own hamburger poised halfway to his mouth, bite aborted in favor of answering.
“The mullet wearing wannabe bad boy?” He quirked a brow over a dark blue eye as he carefully put the wilting patty down on his tray. “That who?”
It wasn’t a description he would have used. He was thinking more along the lines of striking force, but that might have been too much to admit on his first day.
Nodding instead, Shiro continued to watch as the mysterious who in question made his way to an empty seat in the courtyard. His onyx hair caught the light of the sun as he looked around as if checking the area before he planted himself at the table directly across from where they sat.
“That,” he emphasized as he wrinkled his nose, “is Keith. And we don’t talk to that.”
The we he stressed with extra weight and a shifting hand between the both of them.
“Why?” Shiro asked, still unable to pull his silvered gaze away as Keith looked around once more before he slowly waved a hand over the top of his tray. Looking now, he could see the rings that circled his fingers and caught the light, blinding him momentarily with a quick flash.
Beside him, Lance shook his head.
“Because that,” he said, turning the word into something made entirely of hard edges and points, “is trouble.”
Then, as if he could hear them, Keith looked up.
Catching Shiro’s stare through the glass that separated them, he held it with an intensity that made his bones soften before he cocked his head in silent question. An electric sting ran across his chest, searing his skin and turning his cheeks bright with heat as he found himself unable to look away.
Trouble, his mind screamed.
Slow like spilling honey and just as sweet, a smile worked itself across Keith’s mouth as he tilted his chin upwards quickly in all knowing acknowledgement.
Yeah, Shiro thought as he finally averted his eyes, swallowing a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding.
He could see that.
***
He lives in some little shack in the desert, if you can believe that, Lance had said shortly after Shiro had finally gotten his heart rate under control again.
Seriously, Shiro, buddy. He keeps to himself, so don’t even try. Trust me.
He’s a prick.
Everything Lance had said about the stranger was a riptide in his mind, grabbing all Shiro’s other thoughts and drowning them so that all that was left in their place was that smile and the self assured nod.
Something about the way Lance had described Keith hadn’t quite lined up with what Shiro had seen that first day, or any of the following days for the rest of the week. Every description he gave was mired in insult that, as far as he could tell, was undeserving and altogether false.
The only thing that seemed to be accurate was the title of trouble, but he hadn’t quite yet figured out if that was because of how deadly the sharp lines of his face were, or because of the way Shiro’s heart would forget how to beat whenever their eyes would meet.
An annoying little voice at the back of him mind reminded him of the likelihood of both.
Sighing loudly, Shiro thrust his hands further into the pockets of his jacket as he hunched his shoulders up towards his ears in a vain attempt to protect them from the cold night air.
He hadn’t been planning on looking for the shack, but curiosity for things unknown had always been his downfall.
After all, that very curiosity had been why he’d moved to the middle of the desert in the first place.
Shiro was in love with space, and all the things that were still left to be discovered of its unending stretch of dark sky and blinding stars, and Garrison High was the highest ranking STEM school in the nation. Almost all students that attended the school in some capacity ended up at Garrison University, which boasted the highest number of graduates accepted into NASA.
His curiosity was why he jumped at the chance to attend the Garrison for his senior year.
And now that curiosity was why he was lost in the middle of the night looking for Keith’s shack.
You can’t miss it. It’s right at the base of the plateau and the literal only thing out there, man.
Lance’s voice taunted him with the simple instructions that wrapped themselves around his brain stem as he stepped over the sun baked earth and dried vegetation.
“Can’t miss it, my ass,” he drawled under his breath as he continued forward, his path lit by nothing else but the moon above. Bathing the otherwise colorful desert with its cool light, the scene before him was turned monochromatic and otherworldly. The cold bite that edged everything before him in silver sent a hush of goosebumps running along his skin.
Normally, he would find the moonlight beautiful, but tonight it glowed with something sinister. Something that felt all to ready to eat him alive.
Of course, maybe that was just him being on edge.
Being lost in the desert could do that to a person after all.
“Dammit!” He hissed in frustration as he stopped, throwing his head back to look upwards towards the night sky, pinpointing Pegasus as he breathed. The stars at least, were there to offer him some kind of solace.
Dragging his gaze between the stars that made up the constellation, he repeated the pattern until he felt his breathing calm and his heartbeat slow.
He really should give up.
It had been an embarrassing amount of time since he’d left his hover bike on the main road and defeat was tainting his mood with a roiling darkness much like the shadows stretched across the desert before him.
Even if he found the shack at this point, what would he even do? Keith would inevitably want to know what he was doing there, and something told him that I was drawn to you was only acceptable in young adult supernatural romances.
Shiro wasn’t even entirely sure what caused the pull festering deep within his gut that fought to drag him to Keith like he was the sun and he as nothing more than a planet caught in his orbit. Worst still that it was an unavoidable thing. He had no more say in the matter than anything else that was inevitable.
He was caught in Keith’s orbit, and after a week of watching him at school, he’d learned that any and all attempts to exit the continuous spin was met with nothing but failure.
Worst still, was the fact that he didn’t even want to be free of it, because while he pushed against the distinct pull, he also knew that he still needed to know more.
More, more, more.
Of course, he probably could have stood to wait until the following Monday during actual school.
But hey, he never said he was perfect.
Setting his jaw with new resolve, Shiro gave Pegasus one last pass before he turned his gaze back towards the ground just as a breeze shuffled the brush around his feet and set his hair dancing across his vision.
There, just in the distance, enveloped in a soft golden glow emanating from within, was the shack.
How? He thought as he stared openly at the old wood of the exterior, mouth slightly agape at the obvious nature of the dilapidated structure straight ahead from where he stood. A ripple of unease flashed down his spine as he blinked against the vision of the shack.
It hadn’t been there moments ago, that he knew for a fact.
Even with the cover of night, the moon had lit the barren landscape enough that even if the light had previously been off, he would have been able to make out its silhouette at the base of the plateau.
Just where Lance had said it would be.
Stumbling across the expanse that stood between him and the small home, he picked through a particularly large bush, cringing at the loud snaps of brittle twigs that punctuated the otherwise silent night but still unable to stop.
There it was again, that unavoidable pull as if his limbs were tied to strings and he wasn’t the one in control of them. Biting at the inside of his cheek, he moved until he stood just at the foot of the barely there patio connected to the front of the shack.
Why do you even care so much? That damned small voice asked, sounding more and more like Lance with each question of his intentions.
The easiest answer would be that he just wanted to form his own opinions on Keith. He’d never been one for rumors or obvious biases, having found himself on the receiving end the high school microscope before. It was easy when you were the new kid with a flashy metal arm to end up the focus point of bathroom gossip, and he hated it. He was more than his accident and more than his cybernetic arm in the same way he was certain Keith was more than a troublesome teen with “greasy” hair.
Shiro had seen his hair, and it was far from greasy.
It looked feather soft and exactly like the kind of hair he would love to run his fingers through.
Or, something like that.
Which, led him to the real, more complicated answer. An answer that was nestled deep within his chest with a beat of its own. An answer that seemed to flair up with an unknown heat whenever he saw Keith sit in the same spot each day during lunch, alone and with that secret smile he flashed his way whenever he caught him staring.
For the sake of his own sanity though, he’d stick with the easy one.
Dragging a steadying breath through his front teeth, Shiro took the two small steps in one, careful to distribute his weight across the balls of his feet as he slowly eased himself across the rickety patio and settled in a crouch at the windowsill.
Peeking over the top of the cracking wood, his gaze fell on the interior of the shack. Spanning the space of a single room, it was filled by a sparse table and even sparser bed tucked in the corner, and standing between the two, was Keith.
Dressed in his usual black, the darkness was offset by the bright red leather strap that hung loosely from within the collar of his worn v-neck. Head turned down to the table and something he couldn’t quite see from where he was perched, Keith dragged his bottom lip between his teeth as he quickly raised a hand. Silver caught the light of the fire illuminating the space as he drove a dagger down with a loud thudding noise.
Shit, Shiro thought as he watched Keith shake the hair out of his eyes as his arm moved, pushing and pulling the blade through whatever was on the table.
A thrum of something a lot like adrenaline cascaded through his veins, screaming at him to turn back now, but all he could think about was how fluidly Keith’s hand had moved as it had arced through the air, and the crystal gem cut of his face.
Really, if Shiro was smart, he would run now.
He would get out before something bad could happen. Something that would get him caught. Something like—
The sharp staccato sound of his text tone shattered the almost unnatural quiet around him and the shack, shaking him loose of whatever spell it had cast on him as his eyes widened. With a small, strangled sound, Shiro thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled the offending piece of technology from where it sat nestled against his hip.
Its light nearly blinded him as he looked down at the screen to see a single message from one ‘Lancey Lance’ stretched across it.
hey dude wut r u up to
Something told him his friend wouldn’t really like the answer to that question. Shaking his head slowly as he flicked his phone to silent, Shiro pushed it deep into his pocket and looked up only to choke on the sudden crash of his heart against his tonsils.
Keith was no longer in the shack.
“Didn’t anyone teach you that it isn’t polite to show up unannounced?” A voice like thick smoke growled at his ear as he felt the soft bite of metal at his throat. It was somehow exactly how he would imagine Keith’s voice, and yet nothing like it at all as his brain heaved itself into overtime in an attempt to catalogue the exact timbre of it.
The rational part of his brain told him to be afraid.
The less rational, and much larger part, tried to pinpoint where exactly Keith’s voice landed between smoldering embers and ash.
“So what trick were you planning?” Keith continued, exasperation quelling the growl in his words. Something about the way he said it made it sound like this wasn’t the first time he’d had uninvited visitors. It was a thought that soured all the words he’d heard from his classmate further.
Loner.
Greasy.
Hothead.
Shiro’s throat rubbed against the edge of the blade as he carefully swallowed the bitter taste that had coated his tongue.
“Trick?” He finally said, raising his arms slowly in a sign of surrender. After a momentary pause, he felt the dagger pull away. Waiting just a beat longer, Shiro turned over his shoulder to face Keith, maintaining his crouched position.
Looking up at him, he saw the way the light from inside danced across his eyes, turning them an almost unnatural shade of purple that sent a fluttering rush through his gut.
“I wasn’t planning any tricks,” Shiro continued, arms still raised as he let his gaze wander down the slim, neat trim of his waist and over the long line of his legs before snapping back up in time to see his eyes widen.
“You,” Keith said, the word a single hush of barely there breath as he looked down at him with something that looked a lot like recognition mixing in the mauve of his gaze.
Under different circumstances, Shiro might have even felt a pang of elation roll out across his chest and muting the solid beat of his heart.
Raising his brows in silent question, he drew his arms back down as he slowly shifted his weight and began to rise. Unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he began to speak once more, turning his tone soft.
“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t me—”
The sharp crack of splintering wood cut off his words as the porch buckled beneath Shiro’s foot, sending pricks of biting pain up his shin as his leg crashed through it. Eyes widening as everything around him tilted with the loss of balance, his fingers closed around air as he descended backwards in near slow motion.
He watched as Keith’s mouth moved around a silent word as he thrust his hand out. A single flash of something warm danced along his sternum as his fingers brushed across his chest, not quite catching his shirt before Shiro hit the ground.
There was a sting at the base of his skull that rattled his teeth, and then everything went black.
***
Consciousness came back to Shiro in soft ebbing waves of warmth that washed out across his skin and turned the backs of his eyelids the same soft shade of Lake Hillier. It was slow and graceful and unlike he’d imagined from years of media and action movies.
Where was the sudden crash that jolted him upright in bed with a heaving gasp?
Instead, he was met with a soft waking that settled him atop a feathery bed, and surrounded by the scent of heated spices and drying earth.
Breathing in deeply, Shiro carefully opened his eyes to a dark wood ceiling lined by even darker timber. Thick twine wrapped around the beams above him, carefully suspending various plants that were unlike anything he’d seen out in the desert.
Or in any terrain he’d been in for that matter.
Purple and yellow and red, they created a kaleidoscope of color against his vision as it focused itself to a point of clarity.
Where am I? He thought carefully, wincing slightly at the spasm of pain that rocked through his skull, reverberating outward from a single point at its base. The last thing he’d remembered was the desert, and a text message, and a pair of eyes that captured the depth of the universe itself.
Oh, right.
“How are you feeling?” Keith’s voice was tight, pulling Shiro’s attention from the items above and to the side where he stood once more at the table he’d been at before the intrusion. Scattered across the scarred and stained table top, were decimated plants and several small glass vials, each filled with what looked a lot like ground petals. He watched for a moment, filing away the quick flash of Keith’s rings as he roughly chopped at the plants on the table.
Each movement of the blade was a graceful slice across the vegetation, and even though he knew he should be frightened with the knowledge of that same blade against his throat, Shiro couldn’t help but think Keith’s finesse was something of a mastered skill.
It was beautiful.
“I’m feeling like,” Shiro started as he pushed himself upright and slung his legs over the edge of the bed, biting down the woozy feeling that tilted the room before him on its axis as he rubbed at the back of his neck with a wince.
“Feeling like I just fell through a porch.”
His laugh sounded more like a wheeze as he tried to turn the statement into the joke. It was met with a glint of fire filled amethyst as Keith’s eyes snapped up to look at him, his mouth turned into a harsh line as he flipped the knife in his palm and succinctly thrust its tip into the wood of his table.
A fierce edge filled his presence with all the force of a tempest, supplying Shiro with one, single word.
Trouble.
“Look, I can pay for the repair—” He began, stumbling over his words as he dragged his arms up once more in surrender, only to be cut off.
“I don’t care about the porch,” Keith’s tone was clipped as he placed the palms of his hands on the table before him, leaning over slightly as he eyed his unwelcome guest. “That’s fixed already.”
“Fixed?” Shiro’s brows drew together in question as he felt his chest tug forward. Setting his forearms across his knees, he cocked his head to the side. “How?”
A small scoff parted Keith’s lips as he rolled his eyes, removing one of his hands and waving it to and fro as if that was some answer. After a moment of silence because no, it wasn’t, he spoke.
“Magic.”
The syllables were hard and blunt, filled with an obviousness that teetered dangerously close to sarcasm, but never quite tipped over the apex. It was a joke, Shiro knew, yet he still felt a featherlight touch trace the shape of his spine.
“What—”
“Why are you here?” Keith cut off, tone defensive as the line of his shoulders hardened beneath the weight of something Shiro couldn’t know. Beneath the burr of it, he could hear small fractures that threatened to snap beneath it. His gaze was cold, tightened at the edges in a momentary lapse that left him reeling.
Then, almost as soon as the mask had fit itself across Keith’s face, it was gone, replaced by a look of blatant curiosity.
“You shouldn’t be able to see me,” he said softly, the thought laced with the thrum of information he wasn’t privy to as Keith spoke the words to himself.
It was an impossible statement that didn’t make sense to Shiro in any capacity. Of course he could see Keith.
How could he not?
With his dark hair like charred ember and his fierce eyes that captured the magnitude of the Northern Lights, he was a presence that demanded to be seen.
After all, wasn’t that really why Shiro was there? Because he had seen Keith?
He had seen him, and now he couldn’t find it in himself to look away.
“What?” He repeated, not entirely sure the amount of air behind the word would push it across the space between them as he watched Keith move forward slowly. Each step was a fluid motion, something like smoke across water that entranced him.
Reaching out carefully, he brushed at the strands of his bangs with a quick flick of his fingertips, careful not to actual touch Shiro’s skin as he bit down on the meat of his full bottom lip.
“My spells don’t seem to work on you, Takashi Shirogane,” Keith mused, rolling his name of his tongue with care. It was wrapped in the plush of something sweet, as if it anything else might shatter it.
Butterflies danced along the ribs that caged them, tickling his insides as his mind emptied of all thought but the sound of his name on the other student’s tongue.
“You know my name?” Shiro asked dumbly as a clever smirk edged its way across Keith’s face.
“Just like you know mine,” he said matter-of-factly, shrugging the statement to the side as pink bloomed across Shiro’s cheeks. A moment’s hesitation stood between them as Keith’s hand remained suspended like a bridge between their being. It was in that pause that Shiro’s mind caught up with everything Keith had actually said.
Spells?
Trouble, his mind replied.
“What do you mean by spells?” The question crumpled the edges of Keith’s grin as he stepped back. Eyeing Shiro thoughtfully, a silence fell across the small shack that was marred by the small pops and cracks of the fire lighting the room.
Contemplation turned Keith’s gaze dark as he searched for something only he would know. Moments passed in a slow, aching crawl before Keith sighed lowly, shoulders deflating slightly before pulling back in set determination.
Flicking a wrist out towards the fire, Shiro started when it flared and engulfed the edges of the barely there fireplace. His eyes widened when he realized that though the flames licked across the wood there, it didn’t catch to burn.
“I’m a witch,” Keith said, voice growing huskier with truth.
Only, truth couldn’t have been what it was. Could it?
The heat of something entirely separate of the fire burned against his skin as Shiro’s eyes darted around the shack, looking for an anchor point before his mind ran away from him.
Images flashed across his mind’s eye, splashing scenes of Keith at lunch, the shack and the fire against his vision in a quick flush of color and light.
Then, they were gone, leaving a single word in their wake.
Trouble.
“Shit,” he managed, head snapping away from the bright point of the fire to Keith as he leant back against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. It was a hardened pose made all the more obvious by his feigned nonchalance as he returned the stare.
At the back of his mind, the small voice reminded him that he should be scared. That magic and witches were an impossible thing. Yet all Shiro could seem to focus on was the way the light danced across Keith’s features, turning them almost alien in their beauty.
He was nothing but sharp lines and edges befitting that of a hard cut diamond.
“Nothing major, mind you,” Keith hummed, keeping his voice light though the thrum of adrenaline coursing through hims was all too apparent by the way his arms twitched around him.
“I dabble in some minor spells only. Stuff like charms to keep people away,” he said it with a pointed look accompanied with a sharper smile before he continued his list.
“Some healing medicine for some of the older folks in town who used to visit my mom. A couple things to make the cafeteria food edible.”
Rolling his shoulder into a shrug, Keith shifted his weight further back onto the table until he was sitting on it. There was a pause as he dragged another thoughtful look down Shiro’s frame, leaving behind the static feel of electricity that danced along its tracks as the air grew heavy with anticipation.
Suspending itself over them, the pause finally snapped beneath the weight of the sharp sound of air being dragged through Shiro’s teeth.
Before him, he watched as Keith’s limbs relaxed as his eyes burned with decision as his mouth parted around a husking laugh.
“Maybe even a love spell or two,” he soothed as his mirth turned wicked and sharp.
That look radiated a heat that melted Shiro’s insides, turning him pliant to the surreal nature of the situation. Somewhere deep within him, he recognized the teasing that colored the statement something bright. Keith was making a joke at his expense, only it fell flat if only because at this rate, Shiro didn’t think he’d even need to use magic to ensnare him.
The power of his lightning storm eyes was honestly enough.
“Yeah?” Shiro asked, ignoring how breathless he sounded as he tried to swallow around the bursting heat radiating through his chest. It blistered the back of his skin, threatening to peel it from the bone with the gaze that was carving him up alive.
It was a heat that he wouldn’t mind burning in, whether it was magic or otherwise. Pressing forward slightly, his forearms protested against the bite of his kneecaps into the meat of his arm.
“And how do you cast one of those?”
Eyes growing wide at the question, Keith’s lips parted with silent words as Shiro stood from the bed, led by the tug of gravity radiating from his core.
Trouble, his voice screamed as he stepped forward.
Trouble, it screamed with another.
Trouble.
Their chests heaved as he entered Keith’s space, his amethyst eyes watching him warily as he closed the distance that had separated them.
Somewhere buried deep within himself, he knew he should run.
Magic wasn’t real, neither were witches and spells, but in that moment, he just really couldn’t bring himself to care.
Because this close, Keith was so much more stunning than he’d even gathered from passing glances and lunchtime stares. This close, he could see the freckled constellations that marked the sun-kissed bridge of his nose, and the dark flecks that punctuated the otherwise fathomless depths of his eyes.
This close, he could feel the heat of the wildfire that was trapped beneath the Keith’s skin.
“You really want to know?” He breathed, eyes catching light as they flickered down to his lips and hovering there for just a moment too long before returning to capture Shiro’s silvered gaze.
“Yes.” Fingers twitching slightly, Shiro reached his hand up, pausing for a barely there moment before he swept a soft, dark wave behind the curl of his ear. The soft brush of the pads of his fingers on the tip of Keith’s ear sent a quake thrumming through his veins.
“Show me some magic.”
So he did.
Curling his fingers into the fabric of Shiro’s jacket, he pulled him forward with a jerk. Teeth clicking together with the sudden motion, he shuffled forward between Keith’s legs, settling his palms on either side of the table as he pushed into it.
Light sparkled around all Keith’s hard edges, turning them into something sweet and tangible as he licked a teasing line across Shiro’s bottom lip. Lightning sizzled and cracked down his veins, curling his fingers into the wood of the table as he opened into the kiss with a breathy sound. The heat of it weighed down on him, pressing down against his core and against his lungs, quelling the air that had once been there until pricks of stars colored the backs of his eyelids like monochromatic fireworks.
Magic. The word was quiet, a mere suggestion of a thought as Keith stole all else from him with the press of his lips and heated palm over his heart.
Maybe it wasn’t the same kind that Keith was talking about, but it was magic all the same in how the gravity between them hung tight to his limbs, pulling him in and refusing to let him go.
With a soft moan, Shiro pulled back, a small grin hooking his lips upward as Keith followed. Eyes half lidded and mouth parted around a breath, he couldn’t help the faint thought that told him he was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.
“Wow,” he said inelegantly, as if that could properly convey the way his heart was heaving itself wildly against his chest or the way his skin prickled with the sharp sting of want. Keith drew his gaze upwards, swallowing thickly as his hand twitched where it was still wrapped tightly in the front of his shirt.
“Magical enough for you?” It would have had all the bite of teasing if it had had enough air to back it up.
“Does this mean I’m under your spell now?” Shiro smiled, sliding a palm from the table and up the line of Keith’s arm, tracking it over the bone of his shoulder and neck until it lay against the strong flat of his jaw. In one sweeping motion, he brushed his thumb across his cheekbone, earning a low chuckle as Keith shook his head.
“No,” he said lowly. “The spell isn’t completed yet.”
There was an underlying roughness to his voice that made his stomach twist with something like molten expectation.
“What’s left?”
Shiro watched helplessly as the starlit smile returned, turning Keith’s features mischievous as he looked up through his lashes. A coolness spread over his chest as he finally let go of his shirt, turning his hand over so he could crook his forefinger in a slowed motion.
His breath was warm against Shiro’s ear as he leant down, his lips barely brushing against his skin as he spoke, each word sending popping sparks of something altogether enchanting down his spine.
“To complete the spell, you’ll have to buy me dinner.”
Then, he laughed. It was loud and smoky, filled with joy as he pressed his palm to Shiro’s chest once more as he pushed back and rolled his head back with glee. It was a sight that kicked something loose beneath Keith’s fingers and Shiro wasn’t entirely sure he was being truthful about it not being completed because in that moment, he was sure that laugh was a sound he would gladly listen to forever.
Because that, is trouble.
Lance’s voice reminded him, completely unbidden as Shiro leant down to capture the last dregs of Keith’s laugh between his lips.
No, he thought as he smiled into the pressure, curling his fingers into the soft hair at the base of Keith’s skull.
Keith wasn’t trouble.
He was magic.
And Shiro was in for one hell of a school year.
******************************