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“I’m sorry, sir, but there are rules. Only family members are allowed into the rooms outside of visiting hours. You can come back tomorrow to see him.”
“But I am family!” Keith all but shouted. The nurse raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “I’m his... he’s my... we’re married!”
“Oh?” She tapped a pen against her clipboard, looking him up and down like she was measuring him.
“Yes. You can go ask him if you want. But just let me see him, please.”
“All right,” the nurse said at last, pursing her lips. “I’ll ask him for confirmation in the morning. In the meantime, he’s in room 701. Don’t stay longer than an hour.” She breezed away, leaving Keith to speed walk his way down the hall.
He felt like an idiot for coming up with so blatant a lie -- if the nurse asked Shiro, he’d tell the truth that they weren’t even together, much less married, and Keith would be banned from visiting him again. But it had been so easy to say in the moment. His tongue always got carried away in such situations, blurting out things he would rather keep hidden. But what’s done was done and he was just grateful that it bought him access to Shiro’s side.
Tapping on door 701, he pushed it ajar and peeked in. Shiro smiled at him from where he was propped up on the bed, and beckoned him inside.
“Hey there, I was wondering when you’d show up.”
“I had to run a gauntlet of nurses, but here I am.” Keith pulled out a plastic chair and sat next to the bed. “How’re you doing?”
Shiro gestured to where his bandaged ankle was elevated. “Pretty good. I’m on so many painkillers I can’t feel a thing. Doc said it was only a sprain, so he put a brace on it and said I could leave in the morning.”
“Awesome.” Keith breathed an internal sigh of relief. Maybe he wouldn’t have to face that nurse again; maybe she wouldn’t have time to ask Shiro any unfortunate questions.
“Yeah.” Shiro chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “The not so awesome part is going to be explaining to our coworkers how this happened.”
“Icy sidewalks happen to the best of people.”
“But Allura specifically said at the beginning of shift to be careful. And here I am. And... here you are too. Aren’t you supposed to be finishing tonight’s deliveries?”
Keith shook his head. “I told Allura I was driving you to the hospital, and she said keeping an eye on you was more important than delivering a few pizzas. Although I should probably expect my pay to be docked for the number of pizzas that are currently freezing in my car.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll help you cover the cost. That’s what friends are for, right?”
Friends.
Keith gulped.
“Of course.”
----
Luckily for Keith, his lie went undiscovered. Shiro returned to work the next week, limping around enthusiastically with a cane, insisting that he could keep up fine with his round of deliveries. Keith made sure to accompany Shiro just in case -- Shiro would drive while Keith would be the one to carry the goods to the front door.
Business was good, things were going well, and Keith’s words to the nurse had all but faded away into the stream of awkward memories he only thought about at sleepless 3am’s.
It had almost faded away enough that he didn’t get a twinge of apprehension when the late shift at the local hospital ordered half a dozen pizzas for dinner.
Almost.
Shiro pulled the car up to the hospital’s side entrance and Keith hopped out to retrieve the pizzas from the back seat. Arms full, he started toward the door, then looked around. No one else was in sight and he groaned; he’d have to wrestle the door open without dropping anything and without making himself look like too much of a fool.
But behind him, even worse than the thought of dropping fifty bucks worth of pizza, was the sound of the car door opening and Shiro’s voice, “Hold on, I’ll get that for you!”
“You don’t have to,” Keith shouted back immediately, but Shiro had spent a week putting up with his mother-henning and was used to ignoring Keith’s protests.
“I gotta feel like I’m earning my pay somehow.” He hurried past Keith, taking care to avoid any areas that looked even vaguely icy, and pulled the door open.
“Thanks. I’ll be right back as soon as I find where I should put these.”
But instead of returning to the car, Shiro closed the door behind them both and hobbled after Keith. “No way I’m freezing to death out there while you get a few minutes of central heating,” he chuckled, catching the way Keith side-eyed him.
“You really thought I’d abandon you out there?” Keith slapped on an attempt at humor like a band-aid on a broken bone. Because with every step he took closer to the nurse’s station, he remembered more and more clearly the last time he’d been here, and what he’d said, and he was beginning to regret everything in his life that had led him to this moment.
“Oh hey! Food!” The nurse working reception noticed them and stood up, motioning to the countertop. “Thank you so much, you can put those down right here.”
Keith eased down his burden while the nurse counted out bills into Shiro’s hand. Could they leave now? Could they please leave now?
“Hello, Mr. Shirogane.”
Keith looked up as a different nurse approached, apparently drawn by the promise of food. That was all well and good; but he and Shiro had done their job here, and he grasped the other man’s sleeve in a signal to leave.
“No more trouble with the ankle, I hope. It’s nice that you’re looking after him, Keith,” the nurse continued.
Keith had no choice but to smile politely and nod. Why did she look so familiar? Why did her impeccable eyeliner and bright red lipstick stir a flight response?
“Yeah, he’s the best partner I could ask for.” Shiro slung an arm around Keith’s shoulder and wobbled on his cane. “You all enjoy, we need to be getting back to work.”
“Have a good night!” the receptionist chirped.
“Yes,” the lipstick smile echoed. “Keep your husband out of trouble, Keith!”
----
Silence reigned in the delivery car. Keith clasped his hands and looked steadfastly at his lap as Shiro pulled away from the curb and headed back toward Allura’s pizzeria.
Shiro finally cleared his throat as they sat at a red light at a deserted intersection. “So, um. Something you want to explain to me?”
“Not really. I’m an idiot, that’s all it is.”
“Being an idiot makes you my husband?”
Sinking down into his seat, Keith wished he was in a car with anyone else except the one man he had a crush on asking him why they were fake-married.
“Because...” He took a deep breath. Might as well tell the truth this time; maybe Shiro would laugh at how Keith’s panic brain worked, and they’d go back to being nothing more than coworkers who hung out a little too often. “When you hurt your ankle, the nurse wouldn’t let me into the room unless I was related to you. So I just -- the first thing that came to mind was that we were married. I mean, it’s more believable than us being siblings or cousins or something. Anyway, she bought my story and I guess it just stuck in her head when she recognized us.”
“Well,” Shiro said, then went quiet for an uncomfortably long time. Keith sat beside him, heart pounding, as the car pulled into the parking lot and Shiro cut the engine.
“We should head on inside,” Keith muttered. He unclipped his seatbelt and reached for the door latch when Shiro laid a hand on his arm.
“Keith, wait a moment.”
He stopped and looked at Shiro, really looked at him for the first time since leaving the hospital. The bigger man was withdrawn, his eyes flitting nervously over Keith’s expression.
“There’s something that I didn’t tell you either, about that day,” Shiro started then hesitated, withdrawing his hand and taking a deep breath. “I had to fill out a lot of paperwork, and one sheet asked for my next-of-kin in case of emergency.”
Keith froze.
“I wrote your name as... as my husband. Because I trust you, and I hoped that you might not mind. So uh--”
“So that worked out perfectly.” Keith smiled and relaxed. “Do you wanna, maybe, give it a shot? Outside of an emergency situation?”
“That sounds wonderful. How about... ice skating as our first date?”
The punch Keith aimed at Shiro’s shoulder was halfhearted, but his laughter and smile were genuine, through and through.
----