Work Text:
It all started when Shiro met the most beautiful man in the world at a dog park.
Not the most traditional of places to run into beautiful men, for sure, but neither of them were particularly traditional. Unlike sweet meet-cutes in cafes or the intoxicating thrill of a nightclub romance, their introduced was simple. Understated, even, if one tried to forget falling face first into a puddle of mud and dog shit and boy did Shiro try.
To be fair on himself, it was hardly his fault. Occupational hazard of being a dog walker that he hadn’t foreseen when he’d taken it up. The fluffy assholes got under the feet on the regular, leaving one flat on their very sore, now-dirty, ass, and though he tried all he could, it only took a moment of distraction for the legion of furry embarrassers to strike. And of course, their timing primed for ultimate humiliation, like the day when Shiro ran into the man that would become the love of his life.
There had been rain the night before, so he ended up shepherding the motley army of poodles, Labradors, corgis and one lone boxer named Ruby away from the mud for the entirety of their run to the park. After all, didn’t want to deal with dirty paws in his SUV. It was all for nought, though, because the second that he’d gotten to the dog park he’d seen the mud, lost himself to despair, and resigned himself to the realities of his job for what felt like the millionth time.
And then, it happened. As he was unclipping Ruby’s lead, his life changed.
He saw him.
To say that he was the most beautiful man Shiro had ever seen somehow failed to do the god before him justice. He was thin but not skinny, no; his muscles were very clearly defined, rippling as he tugged on the leash of a large German Shepherd. His hair, a shiny black even from a distance away, had been pulled into a bun at the nape of his neck. His face – his face – and those eyes, so beautiful an angel would weep and Shiro, who was hardly known for his eloquence, found himself compelled to write full sonnets to them.
And they were looking his way. Shiro had a brief moment of panic when he realised those chips of amethyst were trained on him. Said panic was on exacerbated when the man smiled slightly, a soft thing that melted his legs and turned his already mushy brain to liquid.
That was, of course, when the fluffy assholes struck. For a brief moment, all was well. Then, as if sensing the eyes of the beautiful man turned their way, the two Labradors chose that moment to tug on their leads, which wouldn’t have been too much of an issue if Ruby the Boxer hadn’t decided to take off an entirely different direction. He tugged back, then –
SMACK!
He went down, and he went down hard. Face. First. Not even years of training and suffering in the Army was able to keep the tears that sprung instinctively to his eyes as the dogs all crowded around his sprawled figure. He laid there, nose pushed into the rather foul-smelling mud, long enough to consider never getting up again, but eventually, the need to breathe outweighed his dramatic nature and he pushed into a sitting position.
“Are you alright?” came the voice of an angel, silhouetted by a bright light. It took him a moment to realise the light was the sun and not some otherworldly glow. The man’s frown of concern came sharply into focus as he stepped closer. “That was a bad fall.”
He was perfect. Shiro never wanted death more.
~
Keith felt bad. Really, really bad.
The dog walker’s fall – Shiro’s fall – was almost more attention-grabbing than the man himself. Almost, being the imperative word there, because he had grabbed Keith’s attention in the seconds leading up to his nose-dive into the mud, and those few seconds were enough to realise the dog walker had been similarly enchanted by him to the point where he didn’t notice the antsy-ness of his furry charges. Thus: mud, meet hot buff dude.
Was it weird that Keith was slightly jealous of the mud? No, Keith knew the answer to that. It was totally weird. But not as weird as the fact that he’d been stalking the dog walker for the past week.
Not stalking so much, he mused as he helped the man to his feet all the while trying to calm his thumping heartbeat. More … reconnaissance. After all, he needed someone to take Kosmo out for walks of an afternoon when he had shifts at the station and he’d be a poor companion if he allowed a complete stranger access to his best friend. Not to mention the guy was ex-military, so who knew if the dude had a gun kink. It was logical to do research into the man, and it wasn’t as if Shiro – the flyer said to call him Shiro! – was the only one he’d looked into.
Just the … only one he’d followed. But only twice! And to the dog park too! It was relevant to deciding if the man was worthy of taking care of his most beloved buddy, seeing him interact with the dogs. Not to mention that the second time was when he fully intended on introducing himself, seeing if Shiro would be interested in meeting up, ge– to look after Kosmo, of course!
Only that had ended in disaster. So Keith, understandably, felt really bad.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked again, brushing grass off Shiro’s back and instantly cursing himself for touching the abundant back muscles. They were super distracting.
“Yeah,” Shiro replied, his cheeks flaming even under a thick layer of mud. Keith would be lying if he didn’t say he found it adorable. “Uh, can you help me– well, I guess I can let them run around wild for a little bit to get their energy out.”
“Yeah,” Keith agreed. Kosmo tugged on his leash, and he sighed. “Alright boy,” he said as he unclipped him and the great dog bounded off to play with Ruby.
Shiro hummed, his cheeks still flushed as he watched the two dance around each other. In that tone people use for pleasantries, he commented, “Nice dog.”
Which, in retrospect, was hardly a linking sentence for what came out of Keith’s mouth next. In years to come, it would be something for Shiro to tease him about.
“I’m looking for someone to take care of him,” he blurted out. Shiro looked taken aback, and it wouldn’t be until later that Keith found out he thought he’d meant to get rid of Kosmo, but even without that knowledge, he’d felt compelled to elaborate. “During the day, that is. Kosmo gets lonely while I’m at work and he has a lot of energy and I’m not always able to walk him after work so I was thinking that I could get a dog walker and then I came across your advert and–”
“Woah, ok,” grinned Shiro, running his robotic prosthetic through his hair. His cheeks pinked further under the mud. “Maybe we can talk about Kosmo and dog walking over a coffee, uh …”
“Keith,” Keith offered.
The other man brightened.
“Keith!” he exclaimed. “I’m Shiro, by the way.” It took everything in Keith to stop from replying that he already knew. “So would you be, uh, interested?”
And so that was how Keith caused the most beautiful man in the world to fall in dog shit and still got a date out of it.