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Come inside from the cold and rest your weary soul
You belong, you are loved, you are wanted
You're not alone
I've missed you so
Welcome home
Shiro tugs at the collar of his coat, trying to pull it tighter against him. He has a scarf wrapped around his neck underneath it, but the icy wind is still biting through the layers to nip at his skin. The streets are deserted, everyone already holed up inside as what the weathercasters have been calling the storm of the decade bears down upon them.
Shiro had stayed back late at the office to get everything ready for what was likely to be a multiple-day shutdown. He’d shooed everybody else out hours earlier to make sure they made it home safe, but since he lived in walking distance, he figured he was safe. He’s really rethinking that decision now as the snow soaks his hair and coat. Only a couple more blocks and he’ll be home and able to enjoy the giant mug of hot chocolate that is calling his name.
He makes it another block and is definitely cursing his decision to stay late as the snow picks up. Little pellets of ice have started pelting him every other minute when a glimpse of red in a recessed shop doorway catches his eye.
Shiro pulls to a stop when he realizes it's a person, huddled up in the doorway with a duffel bag near their feet. They have their knees pulled to their chest and face pressed into their knees. They’re not moving and the red coat they’re engulfed in is not nearly thick enough for this weather.
He trots over to them and crouches down. “Hey, you okay? Nobody should be out in this weather,” he says lightly. Especially no one should look like they’re planning on staying out in this weather. He’d heard reports that local highschools and churches were opening their gyms for the local homeless population to stay in during the storm since the shelters filled up quickly.
The person in red doesn’t answer. Shiro cautiously reaches out to touch their shoulder. “Hey, I can help get you somewhere to ride out the storm before it gets worse,” he says.
Finally the person looks up. Shiro sucks in a breath as he’s pinned in place by violet eyes — unfocused and bleary — set in a face constructed of sharp angles. The guy is gorgeous and obviously very, very out of it.
“Who’re you?” the man slurs out, tongue clumsy over the words.
“I’m Shiro,” he says. “Do you have somewhere you can go? It’s dangerous to stay out here when it’s this cold and it’s just going to get colder.”
The man shakes his head. “Got evicted.” He pauses. “Asshole.”
Shiro is inclined to agree if that last bit was directed at the landlord. Kicking someone out into this storm is a shitty move.
“Can you tell me your name?” Shiro asks.
It takes a moment for the question to register. “Keith.”
“Okay, Keith. How long have you been out here?”
Keith just stares at him.
Shiro sighs. “You are already hypothermic, I think,” he says, trying to remember what he learned about hypothermia in first aid training. He’d focused more on heat stroke symptoms than hypothermia during his military years. “You need to get warmed up. Is there someone you can call?”
“Phone’s dead,” Keith mumbles. He blinks at Shiro. “Why’re you here?”
“Because I don’t want to see you freeze to death in the doorway of an overpriced shoe store,” he says. “Honestly, I’d call an ambulance but I think the roads are closed already.”
“Oh.”
Shiro doesn’t think there’s any temporary shelters that he can get to quick enough to not be trapped there himself and he’s not sure any of them will have the resources to treat Keith’s hypothermia, anyways. He makes a snap decision and hopes he doesn’t regret it as much as staying late at work.
“Okay, how do you feel about coming to my apartment to warm up?” Shiro asks. Matt is going to yell at him so much if he ever finds out Shiro invited a stranger to ride out a storm in his apartment, but something tells him he can trust Keith.
Keith squints at him. “Do I know you?”
“I’m Shiro, remember?”
Keith hesitates before nodding. “Okay.”
Shiro’s not entirely sure Keith actually knows what’s going on, but he slowly helps him to his feet. Once he’s standing on wobbly legs, Shiro takes off his scarf and wraps it around Keith’s neck instead. It’s not going to do a lot, but it makes him feel like he’s doing something.
Shiro shoulders Keith’s surprisingly heavy duffel bag and the backpack Keith had been hugging to his chest and starts herding him towards his apartment building. The snow is coming down hard now, lending the city an unnatural hush broken only by the wind.
Shiro sighs in relief as soon as they step into the building. He feels half frozen himself and can’t even imagine how Keith is doing. He looks a little dazed by the sudden temperature change between outside and the building lobby.
“Come on, buddy,” Shiro says, walking towards the elevators. One is already at ground level so they’re able to get on immediately. “Almost there.”
Under the fluorescent lights, Keith looks frighteningly pale. Shiro wills the elevator to move faster as it crawls towards the tenth floor.
He gets a clumsily cooperative Keith in the door of his apartment and locks the door behind him. Shiro sets down Keith’s bags and sheds his coat and shoes before starting on Keith.
“We need to get these wet clothes off, first,” Shiro tells him. “Do you think you can do that while I get you something to wear or do you need help?”
Keith blinks up at him and then half his mouth quirks up into a smile. “You’re more than welcome to take my clothes off.”
The words are slurred and slow but Shiro still turns bright red. “Right. Okay. Just um, wait here while I get you something to change into and a towel.”
He practically flees the room and takes a moment to himself once in the safety of his bedroom. He cannot let this fluster him. He brought Keith home to help him, not to flirt. Shiro takes a deep breath and digs through his drawers for a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring and a sweatshirt with one hand while trying to google hypothermia treatment on his phone with the other.
A quick scan of the information tells him Keith definitely has hypothermia but it hasn’t gotten severe yet. Getting him warm and dry is the best thing he can do.
Shiro nips into the bathroom for a couple of towels. He’s just added them to the stack of clothes when he hears a soft thump from the other room. He hurries back and finds Keith leaning up against the back of the couch like he just fell, one shoe off.
The borrowed scarf is on the couch. It looks like Keith made an attempt to fold it.
“Are you okay?” Shiro asks, setting the stack of clothes down.
Keith nods. “Just trying to take things off like you said.”
“Good job,” Shiro tells him, offering a smile. “Can I help?”
Keith nods.
Shiro gets the too-thin coat off first and is unsurprised that the equally thin hoodie underneath is also damp. “Doing okay?” He asks as they work to get the hoodie and the t-shirt underneath it off in one go. Keith’s skin is cold to the touch.
“Yeah,” Keith says with a nod. His hair is dripping and wild from the shirts coming off. Tiny shivers wrack his body.
Shiro grabs one of the towels and hands it to Keith. “Dry your hair while I work on the rest.”
He waits for Keith to start weakly scrubbing over his hair before drawing in a breath and popping the button on Keith’s jeans. It’s a struggle to drag them down seeing as they’re slimcut and wet to boot. Keith’s boxer-briefs come with them and so does his remaining shoe when Shiro gets there. He quickly strips off Keith’s socks and then stands to get the other towel, trying not to look directly at Keith.
“Okay?” he asks, pausing with the towel an inch away from Keith’s skin.
Keith nods and Shiro quickly wipes the towel over him, getting some of the moisture off, and then reaches for the sweatshirt he brought out. He helps Keith into it and has to bite back a smile at how comically oversized it is on the smaller man. He looks a bit like a disgruntled kitten with his hair sticking up on end and drowning in Shiro’s old NASA hoodie.
He holds the sweatpants out and Keith grips his shoulders as he steps into them. Shiro cinches the waist so they stay up and ties them off.
“Let’s get you under some blankets,” Shiro says, ushering him around to the front of the couch to sit. “You’ll be warm in no time.”
He gathers up most of the blankets in his apartment and a pair of fuzzy socks he likes to wear around the house and essentially tucks Keith into a nest on the couch.
“How are you feeling?” Shiro asks, taking a seat on the other end of the sofa. There’s a little bit of color in his cheeks which Shiro definitely thinks is a good sign.
“Little better,” Keith says. He definitely sounds more coherent, slurring a little less now that he’s warming up. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Shiro says. “If you’re okay for a few minutes, I’m going to go change clothes.”
Keith nods. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” Shiro heads back to his bedroom and changes into his favorite sweats and grabs a sweatshirt for himself. He slips his feet in his slippers and pads back out into the living room.
“I’m going to make hot chocolate,” he says, stepping into the kitchen. He’s been craving some since he started his walk home and the website he’d glanced at said a warm, sugary drink was good to aid in warming someone up. “You want some?”
“That’d be great, Shiro. Thank you.”
“Made with milk or water?”
“Whatever’s easiest,” Keith hedges.
Shiro gets out the milk. “Honestly, hot chocolate should always be made with milk, as far as I’m concerned. But I can accept people drinking the watery knockoff if they can’t drink milk,” he says, shooting a grin towards Keith who’s watching him from the couch.
“I haven’t ever had it with milk before,” Keith admits as Shiro starts heating it up.
Shiro raises his eyebrows. “Really?”
The blankets around Keith move like he might have shrugged. “Usually only had hot chocolate when someone made a big batch for something. Cheaper to use water.”
“Makes sense,” Shiro says gently. “Well, get ready to really treat your tastebuds!”
He digs in the cupboard and finds the canister of good hot chocolate behind boxes of tea. Usually he makes do with the packets because they’re cheaper, but he keeps the good stuff for when he really wants to indulge.
Keith seems like he could use a bit of indulgence at this point.
He quickly gets the mugs of cocoa prepared and finds a can of whipped cream in the back of his fridge to top them off with.
“Might want to start working your arms out of the blankets,” Shiro calls over as he finishes up.
He hears Keith curse quietly as he struggles to free his arms. He’s managed to get them out by the time Shiro gets to the couch. He hands the red mug to Keith and settles down with his own mug, drawing his knees up to mirror Keith’s position.
Shiro watches Keith take his first sip. He makes a noise that sounds like delight and immediately goes in for another taste.
“Better than the watery stuff, right?” Shiro asks with a laugh before sipping at his own.
“Much,” Keith says. “It tastes completely different.”
“I’ll consider you a convert, then,” Shiro teases. “Even the cheapest hot chocolate tastes better when made with milk. This is the good stuff, but… always milk if possible.”
“Noted.” Keith’s voice has a pleasant rasp to it as his vocal cords warm up.
They drink their cocoa in silence. Shiro tries not to stare at Keith but he’s definitely the most interesting thing in the room.
“Feeling warmer?” Shiro asks when he’s reached the bottom of his mug.
“Much,” Keith says. He offers Shiro a smile — something small and a little shy that get Shiro’s heart fluttering. “Thank you for all of this. You didn’t have to.”
“I really did,” Shiro argues. “I wasn’t going to leave you to freeze to death on the sidewalk.”
“What a way for a desert rat to go,” Keith quips. His eyes skitter away from Shiro’s like he maybe didn’t mean to reveal that information. “I owe you one, though, for saving my ass. I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can fully feel my toes again, though.”
Shiro snorts incredulously. “Keith. Have you seen the weather reports?”
“Cold and snowy?” Keith asks, face scrunched up in a way that really shouldn’t be as cute as it is.
Shiro unfolds himself from the couch and goes over to one of the windows, opening the curtains to reveal the blinding whiteness outside. “Storm of the decade,” he parrots. “City’s going to be shut down for at least a couple of days. I don’t think you’re going anywhere, especially since you mentioned something about being evicted, earlier.”
“Fuck.” Keith presses his forehead to his knee and then looks up, wild-eyed. “My stuff!”
He starts trying to struggle out of the blankets and Shiro rushes to stop him. “Hey, hey, no. Stay in there. There’s no way you’re back up to the temperature you need to be yet. Your duffel bag and backpack are by the door. That’s all the stuff I saw you had with you.”
Keith relaxes and lets Shiro push him back down on the couch and tuck the blankets back around him. “I’m sorry, you’re just being nice and now you’re stuck with a stranger until the weather lets up.”
“Doesn’t seem too bad,” Shiro offers. He takes Keith’s empty mug and heads back towards the kitchen to deposit it in the sink.
“You don’t even know me.”
Shiro shrugs. “Seem like an alright guy to me. I’m about 98% certain you’re not going to murder me, so that’s a positive.”
That startles a laugh out of Keith. “Real high standards you’ve got there, Shiro.”
“Gotta draw the line somewhere,” he says with a wink, sitting back down. “But honestly, if you’re uncomfortable staying here I can ask one of the neighbors if they have space to host you.”
Keith shakes his head. “They’re even more strangers than you are. I’m pretty sure you’re also not going to murder me since you did go through the trouble of making sure I didn’t die.”
“Excellent point,” Shiro agrees. “But just so you know a little about who you’re staying with… I’m Shiro, which is a nickname since Takashi Shirogane is a mouthful for most people. I’m twenty-nine, or seven-and-a-quarter, depending on how you want to count, I’ve been in this apartment for two years and the city for five. I work for a small aerospace engineering firm and am a huge space nerd.”
“Seven and a quarter?” Keith asks.
Shiro beams at him. “Born on a Leap Day.”
“How much shit do you get for that?”
“So much,” Shiro admits. “My friend Matt raided Party City and threw me a birthday party worthy of an actual seven year old last year.”
Keith chuckles.
“Your turn,” Shiro says, then hurries to add, “if you want.”
“Seems fair,” Keith answers, though his shoulders inch up beneath the blankets. “Keith Kogane, twenty-four. I’ve been in this apartment for half an hour and the city for about six months. I work as a mechanic down on Old Garrison Road. I’m also a bit of a space nerd, or so I’ve been told.”
“Well, if we run out of things to talk about there’s always the infinitude of space,” Shiro says brightly.
“Guess so.”
“Can I ask — feel free to tell me to fuck off because it’s not actually any of my business —” Shiro asks after they sit in a not quite comfortable silence for a minute or two, “what happened with the whole eviction thing?”
Keith sighs. “Really none of your business,” he agrees. Shiro is working to tamp down his disappointment when Keith continues. “But it’s really just a case of my landlord being an absolute fucking asshole. It was a shit apartment on a month-to-month deal. He rents out units to anyone with cash, no paperwork, no anything. It was all I could get when I landed here,” he explains with a shrug, not looking at Shiro. “Decided this afternoon that he’d lost my rent money that I already paid and kicked me out when I couldn’t scrape together another month’s worth of rent on the spot and wouldn’t agree to pay another way.”
Shiro can feel his temper spike. “He can’t do that.”
“Well, he did,” Keith says. “I put a fist in his face if that makes you feel any better.”
Shiro raises an eyebrow. “Did it make you feel better?”
“Yup.” Keith pops the p at the end of the word. “Bought me time to throw most of my shit in bags, too. Going to try to get the rest of it whenever the storm lets up, I guess.”
“If you need backup, let me know,” Shiro offers immediately. “I can do a pretty decent fake lawyer impression and the arm can be very intimidating.” He holds up his right hand, sleeve of his hoodie falling back so that the metal catches the light.
Keith looks at with interest, not a hint of pity to be seen, which is nice, but doesn’t ask about it. “I might take you up on that,” he says instead.
“So, what kind of movies do you like?” Shiro asks, reaching for the remote. “We’re stuck here for the time being but I have Netflix and a very pitiful collection of DVDs at your disposal.”
“I’m not picky,” Keith says.
This leads to Shiro pulling up a documentary on big cats that he’s been meaning to watch. Keith grumbles but settles in to watch it without actual complaint.
Ten minutes in, Shiro sees him shiver out of the corner of his eye. “Hey, are you still cold?”
Keith hesitates before nodding. “I’m really not sure warm exists at this point.”
“Probably didn’t have enough body heat for the blankets to help as much as I thought they would,” Shiro muses. He shifts and puts his back against the arm of the couch and makes a space for Keith, letting one leg fall over the edge of the couch. “Come here,” he says patting his chest. “I’ve been told I’m a human heater and it might as well get put to use.”
Keith’s eyes blow wide and he inches backward slightly. “I don’t know,” he hedges.
“Keith, I just want to get your core temperature back up,” Shiro says seriously. “Please come here? I swear this isn’t some elaborate ploy. If you get uncomfortable, you can leave and we’ll find a different way to get you safely warmed up, okay?”
Keith visibly turns Shiro’s words over in his head before nodding. He carefully crawls over towards Shiro after partially unwrapping from the blankets. He settles on Shiro’s chest, stiff as a board and vaguely cold even through the layers of clothing separating them.
Shiro tucks the blankets in around them and then looks back at the TV. It takes ten minutes and as many inane comments about the lions the documentary is currently featuring for Keith’s tension to start ebbing away.
He relaxes by increments until he is no longer trying to hold himself away and is a boneless sprawl across Shiro. The heat is building to an almost uncomfortable degree underneath the pile of blankets but Keith sinks into it. He wraps his arms around Shiro’s torso and presses his forehead to his sternum.
“You weren’t kidding about being a heater,” he mumbles.
“Nope,” Shiro agrees. He wants to try and flatten the unruly strands of Keith’s hair, but he fears a touch will send Keith skittering away. “My last ex wouldn’t let me within a foot of him when we were sleeping during the summer.”
“Wimp.”
Shiro snorts out a laugh. “So you’re feeling warmer, I’m guessing?”
“I believe that warmth exists again,” Keith says. “You were hogging it all.”
“Okay, well you can continue to steal it back until dinner time,” Shiro promises.
Keith is asleep by the time the documentary ends and Shiro’s stomach starts growling. He’s hesitant to wake Keith, but he really does need to heat up some food for the both of them and he’s also sweating underneath the blankets and increasing warmth of his guest.
“Keith,” he says, shaking his shoulder gently.
Keith’s grip on him tightens and he buries his face in Shiro’s chest. It melts his heart a little.
“Keith, time to wake up, buddy. We need to eat.”
There’s a sleepy grumble and then Keith starts pulling away from Shiro, taking the blankets with him and rubbing his eyes. “Did I really fall asleep?”
Shiro nods and gets up from the couch to stumble into the kitchen on half-unsteady legs. Keith unfolds himself and trails after him, leaving a couple blankets behind and only keeping two wrapped around his shoulders.
“I have a selection of takeout in the fridge that I ordered last night so I’d have food during the storm, instant ramen, pasta, sandwich makings, and whatever is in the freezer. Eggs too, I think.”
“Don’t cook much?”
“Eggs and dumping pasta in water is about the extent of it,” Shiro admits. “I can make rice without a hitch, but anything more complicated than that I just never learned how. Hence the takeout.”
“Fair,” Keith says. The rasp in his voice is stronger after just waking up. “I’m not picky or allergic or anything, so anything you’re willing to share is great.”
“Well, I’m not going to starve you,” Shiro teases. He grabs two takeout containers at random and pops the lids off. He sticks the first one in the microwave.
“Good to know. I can make breakfast in the morning, if you want. I promise I won’t burn anything,” Keith says, leaning against the counter.
“I won’t say no to unburnt food,” Shiro quips.
“Again with the high standards,” Keith shoots back.
Shiro grins at him.
They relocate back to the couch to eat their takeout, both containers divvied up so they each get a bit of both, and watch some cheesy comedy. Keith gravitates back to Shiro’s side when they’re finished eating, curling into his side. He mumbles something about staying warm and Shiro drapes an arm around his shoulder and keeps his eyes on the screen.
When the movie ends, Shiro shifts to check the weather alerts on his phone, tilting it so Keith can see too. “Everything’s shut down tomorrow,” Shiro says quietly. “Snow’s going to keep coming down all night.”
“There shouldn’t be this much snow anywhere,” Keith complains.
Shiro laughs. “Well, we have heat and food to ride it out. Pretty good company too.”
“Thanks for sharing all of it with me,” Keith says. “You saved me.”
“Well, you’re now saving me from going stir-crazy,” Shiro says. “So we saved each other.”
Keith makes a noise of dissent but doesn’t actually argue the point.
Eventually they get up and Shiro gets the couch ready to serve as a bed for the night while Keith goes to rummage in his bags for his toothbrush.
Shiro wakes up the next morning to coffee already made and bacon sizzling in the pan. Keith doesn’t look fully awake as he glares at the bacon and sips from his mug of coffee. His hair is a mess and Shiro’s sweatshirt is gigantic on him and he’s the most beautiful thing Shiro’s ever seen.
His heart trips over itself and he can’t help imagining a future of mornings like this even though he’s known Keith for less than a day.
“Morning,” Keith rasps out. “There’s coffee. I saw tea in the cabinet when I was looking for a mug though, so I didn’t know what you usually drink.”
“Coffee’s great,” Shiro says. “Didn’t know I had bacon in the fridge. Must’ve been feeling ambitious at some point.”
“Not one of the things you can cook?”
“Not unless you want it somehow both burnt and raw.”
“Yikes.”
Shiro laughs as he starts pouring his coffee.
They learn each other in pieces in the odd bubble of frozen time that the storm gifts them.
Keith likes his eggs fried but gets another pan dirty to make scrambled for Shiro and then insists on washing all of them himself. He always lets Shiro choose what they’re watching on Netflix but will make cutting comments about half his selections.
He listens to Shiro talk about his work with sharp interest on his face and asks questions that Shiro would never expect from someone without a background in engineering or flight. He tells Shiro about his motorcycle and how he is trying to find a better shop to work in because he doesn’t quite fit in his current one.
Shiro watches him devour any food put in front of him, and discovers that he shares Shiro’s love of sci-fi novels and is more than a little bit of a space nerd.
Shiro hoards the knowledge that Keith likes to curl up against Shiro on the couch, that he fits there perfectly, and that he can smell his own shampoo in Keith’s hair when he does so.
When roads start to open one by one, Shiro knows this stolen time is coming to an end. He is too aware that his apartment is going to feel empty when Keith leaves. His whole life is going to feel a little empty without Keith, despite only three days of knowing each other.
He wants to keep Keith in his life, wants to see if he fits into it the same way he fits against Shiro’s side.
“Where do you plan on going?” Shiro asks when Keith starts to tuck items back into his bags.
Keith shrugs. “One of the guys from the garage said he could put me up for a week or two while I find a new place. We don’t get along that great, but it’s somewhere to stay.”
“Stay with me,” Shiro blurts out. “I mean, you can stay here while you look for a place. If you want.”
Keith looks up at him carefully. “Not tired of me yet?”
Shiro shakes his head vehemently.
Keith bites his lip. “It’s not that I don’t want to stay here,” he starts. Shiro’s heart drops to his stomach immediately. Keith’s eyes dart up to meet Shiro’s, searching them for something. “I just…” He steps closer.
“Just what?” Shiro makes himself ask.
“If I’m your guest, I don’t feel like I can do this.” Keith closes the remaining space between them and leans up to press a soft kiss to Shiro’s lips. He draws back before Shiro has a chance to respond. “And I’m really hoping I’ll get to do that again.”
Shiro tangles his fingers in Keith’s hair and pulls him in for another kiss, longer but no less soft.
“I’d like you to,” Shiro says when he breaks the kiss. He leans his forehead against Keith’s, not letting him go far. “Do that again, I mean. Also stay here.”
“I really like you, Shiro,” Keith says. “I like you too much to just immediately jump to shacking up together. I don’t want to mess this up.”
Shiro steals another kiss. “I really like you, too. If things don’t work out at your coworker’s, promise you’ll come back here?”
Keith’s smile is a sunrise and a revelation. “Of course. And you’ll be seeing me anyways, I hope.”
“Gotta help you scare the shit out of your former landlord,” Shiro agrees. He squeezes Keith’s hips.
“That all?”
“Well, I’m thinking that I want to take you out to dinner very soon,” Shiro says. His smile feels like it’s a permanent fixture on his face. “But that depends on if you have time for me.”
“Always,” Keith breathes.
Shiro kisses him again.