Work Text:
It’s the dry hot depths of summer, and Keith has a glowing sunburn the first time Shiro tells him he loves him.
They’re at the shack, sitting out front as the day winds down. Just the two of them, a cooler half filled with beer, and the space wolf that Keith still insists has no name. Shiro shed his shirt an hour ago as the sun began to sink towards the jagged skyline, draping it around his shoulders to soak up the sweat beading at his hairline, lounging back in his chair with his eyes closed and a bottle dangling by the neck from two fingers. The wolf is laid out on his side at Shiro’s feet, and every now and then Shiro stretches his foot out and buries his toes in the wiry fur on his belly.
Whenever Shiro’s eyes are open, he’s having a hard time keeping them off Keith. He’s perched in his seat in butterfly pose, knees effortlessly folded out and his beer held between the soles of his bare feet. His hair is bunched up in a ponytail, and Shiro wants to tell him how good it looks. The way his bangs frame his face and fall in his eyes, and the shorter lengths tumble down to fan across the back of his neck.
He’s not sure how it would be received, but maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe he can just say what he means. These days anything Keith could read into it wouldn’t be far from the truth.
Shiro’s struck. The kind with the L-word in front of it. He doesn’t want to say it to himself before he says it to Keith. It’s becoming harder and harder, wrestling those four letters into a bottle too small, trying to jam the cork in with two hands that aren’t invested. It would be so easy to just throw it down on the ground to shatter beside his supplicant heart where it beats on its knees. He doesn’t want to keep it to himself anymore. There’s too much held inside it to not share, and Keith would take better care of it anyway. His hands are gentler, always tender on Shiro’s body on the few parts they touch. Shoulder, hand, neck, waist. All of them Keith’s too.
Shiro rolls his head to face him and takes a dry languid breath.
“I like your hair.” He probably should elaborate, but to be fair Shiro always likes his hair.
Keith glances across at him and smiles, the skin under his eyes already a deep pink from too long outside. “Weather like this, I wanna cut it all off.”
The sky didn’t fall. It still hangs above them, huge and blue and white, dappled with pink and orange.
Keith digs in the pocket of his shorts and pulls out a little pot of lip balm, screwing the lid off and dipping the tip of his pinky in, swiping it quickly across his lips.
He rubs them together to spread it around, leaving them shining and red, and says, “I swear we’ve been on planets with two suns that were less vicious than this.”
There are sprays of freckles across Keith’s bare shoulders that Shiro’s never seen before, a product of Earth. Unless he just wasn’t looking close enough. He’s looking now.
Shiro takes a slow sip of bitter beer, and swallows. It fizzes like his skin. “I liked the light on Olkarion. It always felt like sunset.”
Keith snorts. “It always felt like dinner time. I had to stop looking at Hunk while we were on planet, we kept getting stuck in a feedback loop of yawns. Ryner must have thought we were so rude.”
Shiro shrugs. “Maybe they don’t yawn. Maybe they just thought you were weird.”
Keith laughs and snags his beer from between his feet to stretch his legs out long in front of himself. The armhole of his loose tank dips so low that Shiro can see the bars of his ribs, the sharp purple tip of a scar, the dusky pink of his nipple. When Keith lifts one arm to hook behind his head there’s such a long uninterrupted line of skin from his waist up to his elbow, and maybe his hairy underarm kind of gets Shiro hot, because he has to look away and stare towards the horizon to calm the falcon swoop of his stomach.
Shiro tugs his t-shirt from around his neck to scrub the sweat from his face, and Keith notes, “I’d forgotten what you look like with a tan. It isn’t fair.”
He sure as hell didn’t let Keith see him like this the last time he had a tan. Keith still a kid, Shiro trying hard every day not to feel like one. Cola instead of beer, nothing more revealing than rolled up sleeves and his collar undone. Both of them so much warier of one another. Keith of Shiro letting him down, Shiro of proving Keith’s fears were founded. The rigid and vital responsibility of being a person Keith could allow himself to trust. Several years and losses and billions of stars later, Shiro trusts no one greater.
He drags his shirt back through his hair, and balls it in his lap. “Remember the first time I let you help me tune my bike?”
“And I came away looking like a cooked lobster.”
“I felt so bad about it.” Shiro swirls his beer and holds the bottle up to the light to watch it spin. “I felt like someone should have put me in time out for being such a bad adult.”
“Whatever. That’s what your late teens are for. I mean—barring robot lions.” Keith twists in his chair, draping his legs over the arm to face Shiro completely. “You were so much skinnier back then. And all bushy tailed. You looked like such a good boy.”
Shiro laughs. “I was a good boy.” At good boy the wolf lifts his sleepy head to regard Shiro with a questioning stare, and Shiro rubs his foot firmly along his haunch. He’s almost certain regular dogs don’t feel so staticky. “You too, buddy.” He lays back down, satisfied.
Keith leans forward and drapes his arms over his knees with a twist to his lips that hooks Shiro behind his navel. “Do good boys usually take impressionable teens on hoverbike races?”
“You weren’t the impressionable one.” He could sit here and let Keith tease him for hours on end just to feel the blood flush to his cheeks. “You were so much cooler than I was. I was working with what I had.”
“Were?”
“Still are.” Shiro’s body leans in Keith’s direction of its own accord, chasing the sun. “Too cool to be hanging around with a muscly old creep.”
Keith lets out a clap of laughter, harsh and careless, and kicks his foot in the air between them. “You’re full of shit.”
“Yeah, mostly.” He wants to reach out and close his hand around Keith’s angled bony ankle and close the circuit between them. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to wear that uniform again.”
Keith looks down, watches his foot where it’s bouncing, and his voice comes so softly. “I was.”
Life is short, and third chances are improbable, even with a man like Keith at your side. The war isn’t over, and Shiro doesn’t want to see the end of it without telling him he’s everything. He can’t think of a single reason not to anymore, and he already can’t take it back. There’s a scab on Keith’s knee and his fingernails are bitten short and sweat shines on his throat. Shiro wants to be consumed by him.
He sets his beer on the ground, lists into the untamed flutter in his chest, and breathes, “You’re so beautiful.”
Keith’s head snaps up, thick eyelashes blinking twice, eyes wide, and Shiro watches bittersweet as he quickly sculpts his expression into something more neutral, a loose half smile as he says, “We already know I look good in red.”
Shiro hopes it shows on his face, this desperate offering that doesn’t feel anywhere near adequate for the most important person in his life. “You look good in everything.”
It hangs between them, Shiro’s intention. That he not only needs Keith, but that he wants him too. That he sees him. That he’s letting himself be seen, head bowed and scarred chest exposed.
Keith swallows. “Shiro?”
“Come here.” He sits up, and stretches his metal hand to him palm open.
Keith unfolds without taking his eyes off Shiro’s, sets his feet in the dust and stands.
“Hey, wolf.” He looks up at Keith from his sprawl on the ground, and Keith says, voice calm, “Can you give us a minute?”
And he pops out of sight with a scent like a firecracker.
Keith walks to him, three short steps, and takes Shiro’s hand without question. Lets Shiro guide him between his knees, and reach up to hook him behind his warm damp neck. Shiro hears his breath hitch as he draws him down, and Shiro stops breathing altogether as Keith rests his hand on his shoulder and brands him with his touch.
His lips are glossy, and he tastes like beer and salt and coconut, stuttering a sigh into Shiro’s mouth as they slot together. Shiro cranes up and Keith surges down, noses bumping cheeks as Keith tilts his head and angles Shiro where he wants him, catches his bottom lip, once, twice, and pulls away slowly.
He exhales hot on Shiro’s cheek, foreheads leant together, and murmurs, “You stole all my lip balm.”
Shiro laughs, something wild laced in it, and folds a hand around the curve of Keith’s hip. “I’ve never—” He stops, makes himself catch his breath before it sprints away, inhales around the hammering at the base of his throat. “I love you. More than I’ve loved anything in my whole life.”
Keith groans, wounded and broken, and drapes his arms over Shiro’s shoulders to clamber onto his lap and straddle his thighs as the chair creaks beneath them. Shiro grips his narrow waist, fingertips touching skin where his tank droops down, lets Keith kiss him again, lets him tangle his fingers in Shiro’s hair, and hiss, “I love you,” into his lips.
When he breaks away, he buries his face in Shiro’s neck, and Shiro can’t tell if it’s Keith’s muscles quivering, or his. Shiro presses a hard kiss to his freckled shoulder, and links his hands behind Keith’s back, revelling in the harsh panting filling his ears.
Keith’s nose brushes through his hair. “You finally caught up, huh?”
Shiro kept him waiting, wasted so much time. “Sorry.”
Keith’s long arms tighten around his neck. “We can’t all be trendsetters.”
Shiro smooths his hands up Keith’s back, spanning his shoulder blades. “I hope I haven’t hurt you too much.”
“Only a little,” Keith admits, quiet and gentle. “You’re easy to forgive.”
He’ll make it up to him, in any way he can. Keith owns him, Shiro’s time and soul and brimming heart are his as long as he wants them, and he’s welcome to every meagre fragment.
Shiro says it again, because he can. “I love you.”
Keith hums, and trails his fingers from the crown of Shiro’s head to splay at the top of his spine. “Do you wanna go inside?”
Shiro licks his coconut lips. “Yes.”
“I bet you anything the wolf’s on the bed.”
Keith’s hair moves with Shiro's breath. “Tell him he’s not invited. Will Krolia be back tonight?”
Keith shrugs. “I’ll message her.”
“And tell her what?”
Shiro supports Keith as he sits back on his knees, hands moving to frame Shiro’s face and brush his thumbs across his cheeks. “Stay at the Garrison tonight, I’m making it with my sweetheart.”
“Holy—” Who knew horror and arousal could mix so easily. “Please don’t.”
“I’m kidding.” Keith smiles and it’s perfect as always, eyes sparkling and trained on Shiro’s mouth. “Only about telling her though. I’m gonna get you naked.”
“Oh.” Shiro’s whole body pulses, and he slips a hand under Keith’s shirt. “Good.”
Keith’s heavier than he looks, laughter lighter than air, and thighs a vice around Shiro’s waist when he lifts him as he stands.