Work Text:
If there’s one true thing in Keith’s life, it’s this: Keith loves school.
He does.
He knows he does.
It’s just really hard to remember when he’s going out of his mind taking boba orders in the post-dinner rush after averaging four hours of sleep the past week, and when he knows he still has problem sets to grade once he gets home.
But he didn’t fight his ass off and defy every statistic everyone’s tried to slap on him about orphan kids from group homes only to give up now that he’s made it to grad school.
So he powers through, like he does every night, and like every night, he turns into a zombie when he finally stumbles out of the shop and onto the bus home. Everything from there until the moment he reaches the door of his apartment is a blur. His keys jangle when his hand pulls them out of his pocket on autopilot, and that snaps him back to reality. The grumpy little black cat scowls at him from the end of his keyring.
“Mood,” Keith says.
Shiro’s smiling face pops up over the back of the couch as Keith walks through the door. “Hey! Good day at work?”
“Long day,” Keith says, kicking off his shoes. Work isn’t terrible, the occasional shitty customer aside. But when he’s been up since 6am and his shift ends at 8pm, it’s hard to not just want to be home already.
“There’s dinner,” Shiro says, and Keith’s grumbling stomach has never heard sweeter words. Shiro springs up from the couch and grabs the covered plate from the dinner table. “I got tofu stir-fry. Let me warm it up.”
While Shiro does that, Keith goes scavenging. The table’s bare, so he wanders into the kitchen to check the recycling bin and—there it is. He picks the paper bag off the top and turns it over. There are holes where the receipt must have been stapled, but the receipt itself is gone. He looks into the recycling bin again. Shiro’s too eco-conscious to throw it in the trash.
“Don’t bother.” Shiro smiles proudly as he mashes the start button on the microwave. “I shredded it.”
Keith pulls out his phone. “I’m Venmoing you twenty dollars.”
“You are not!” Shiro’s across the kitchen in seconds, and he clamps his hand over the top of Keith’s phone, pushing the power button while he’s at it.
Keith stares blankly as the screen goes black. He tries to tug his phone back, but Shiro’s grip is firm. He grunts. “Come on, Shiro, you’re already not letting me pay any rent, you can’t pay for all my food all the time.”
“Who’s the adult with the salary here?”
Keith tugs again. “I’m an adult. I have a salary.”
“You have a wage,” Shiro says, the jerk.
“Shiro.”
“Keith.”
They stare at each other for so long that the microwave beeps. Shiro still doesn’t move.
Keith sighs and lets go of the phone. “Fine.”
He expects Shiro to hand his phone back, now that Keith’s given up, but instead Shiro pockets it on his way to the microwave.
“Seriously?” Keith says.
“Love you,” Shiro says, thankfully missing Keith’s flush as he pokes at the plate of food in the microwave, “but I don’t trust you.”
“Asshole,” Keith says, turning away, but he can’t say much more than that because it’s not like Shiro’s wrong. The second he gets his hands on his phone without Shiro looking, he’s sending money.
“Call me all the names you want,” Shiro sings as he puts the plate on the table, “but you’re not getting this back until you promise not to pay me!”
Keith just sighs at him and sits down to pick at the leftovers. “Whatever. How was your day?”
“Pretty good.” Shiro sits down across from Keith and filches a piece of tofu with his bare fingers, even as Keith swats at him with his chopsticks. “Work was—you know, work. I heard something interesting from Matt, though. Apparently, we picked up some weird energy signals on the edge of Tau Omega 5. Not ours, and not something we recognize either, but the patterns were consistent with transportation.”
“An actual UFO in space?” Keith says.
Shiro grins. “Right? It could actually be an alien spaceship.”
“Sucks that we have all the technology to look that far out, but none of the technology to actually go out there and see it for ourselves.”
“Intergalactic travel is hard,” Shiro says. “But you’ll solve those problems for us one day.”
“Not if you solve them first,” Keith says.
“Adam said today—”
“I will fight him,” Keith says, an instinctive reaction after hearing all the Adam said this and Adam said thats that made Shiro feel like shit in the months leading up to and following their fallout.
“You didn’t even let me finish!” Shiro says, but he’s laughing.
It’d taken a long time and a lot of embarrassing moments for Keith to get Shiro smiling again, after. It’s the best feeling in the world to be able to make him do it so easily now.
“I’ll fight him anyway,” Keith says.
Shiro rests his cheek in his hand and flutters his eyelashes. “My hero.”
Keith snorts and kicks him lightly under the table. “Dork.”
“Aw, you love me,” Shiro says.
There’s nowhere to hide his flush this time, so Keith just mumbles, “sure,” and buries himself in food without looking at Shiro’s face.
“So,” Shiro says after a moment, and Keith is instantly wary because it’s Shiro’s consistently terrible fake-casual tone. “You’ve been getting home later than usual.”
Okay, not the conversation he was worried they were about to have.
But this doesn’t sound like one that he wants to have, either.
“Just picking up some extra hours,” Keith says slowly as he grabs a tofu. “It’s only the start of the semester, so it’s not like classes have really picked up yet.”
Shiro nods like he’s listening, but also like he already knew that was what Keith was going to say. “You could use that extra time to get some rest, you know. You don’t have to fill it with work hours just because you can.”
“My bank account says otherwise,” Keith says.
Even with the scholarships he’d gotten for his parentless status, tuition at Garrison University is obscene. Shiro’s been helping, a lot, with his hand-me-down books, and by loaning a few hundred here and there when Keith’s short for the semester—and that last thing is insane.
Keith takes it, gratefully, because the alternatives spell doom for him and/or his financial future, but he’s going to pay Shiro back and he’s going to pull some of his own weight, damn it, even if that means pulling hours of work outside of school.
“I’m just worried about you,” Shiro says, with all of his earnest weight behind it to make Keith weak. “If you’re not studying, you’re working, and if you’re not working, you’re studying. You went full-time over winter break. You didn’t even take the holidays off.”
Of course not. Holiday paychecks make Keith feel like he’s the richest man in the world, and it’s not like he has family to be spending the holidays with or anything.
“I just don’t want you to burn out,” Shiro says.
“Don’t worry about it.” Keith nibbles on the vegetables. “I’m taking naps between classes.”
Shiro frowns at him. “You’re not coming all the way back here, are you?”
“The library couches really aren’t that bad.”
“Keith,” Shiro says, with enough disapproval to make Keith wince. “That’s what I mean. You shouldn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I can let you keep paying for everything,” Keith says, because that’s really what this all comes down to. It’s his own weight to carry. He’s not going to offload it to the nearest willing friend.
“So help with what you can without killing yourself,” Shiro says. “It’s only a couple more years, Keith. If you really feel like you need to pay me back, you can do it after you graduate and you actually have the money for it.”
Keith pushes the food around with his chopsticks. It sounds reasonable, like most everything else that comes out of Shiro’s mouth, and Shiro’s more or less been hinting at this ever since Keith picked up his second job on top of the classes he’s TAing—but something about it still rankles.
He’s used to fending for himself. That’s how people are supposed to get through life. You can’t just rely on someone else to take care of your problems for you.
And it’s unfair, to ask Shiro to take care of him like that and get nothing in return.
“I’ll think about it,” Keith says.
Those words have never been a commitment to anything when it comes from Keith, but Shiro smiles anyways. “That’s all I ask.”
Shiro always orders way too much food, enough that their leftovers have leftovers. Keith brings it to lunch the next day, along with what’s left of the bread pudding from two days ago, and his friends cheerfully and shamelessly steal bites.
“This is heaven,” Lance moans through a mouthful of tofu.
“It’s really not that exciting,” Keith says.
“Is too,” Lance says, and Keith’s pretty sure Lance is only saying that because he’s literally been eating the same burrito for a month straight.
(Struck by genius, Lance had spent a Saturday making fifty of the exact same burrito at once, thrown them all in the freezer, and pulls one out to heat up for lunch every day.
Anything is probably good after that.)
“And the dessert, mm!” Lance says around a spoonful of it. “Man, Shiro’s always getting you the good stuff. Need me a daddy like that.”
“A what,” Keith says.
Lance leans over the table and twirls his spoon. “You know. That sweet, sweet sugar daddy.” He rubs his fingers in a money money money gesture, and Keith flushes.
“He’s not a—why are you saying it like that?” Keith says. “We’re friends.”
“So you’re saying that you don’t reap the financial benefits of your friend’s sweet, sweet sugar?” Pidge says.
“Seriously, why are you saying ‘friend’ like that?”
“Come on, don’t try to tell us you guys aren’t boning,” Lance says. “I know boning eyes when I see them.”
Pidge makes a buzzer sound. “Please, I know pining eyes when I see them, and you’re so wrong.”
“Aw, come on, guys,” Hunk says. “Give Keith a break. Really, Shiro should be the one to make a move here.”
“Why Shiro?” Pidge says.
“What?” Lance says at the same time. “They’ve clearly already made moves.”
“No one is making any moves,” Keith says.
“I mean, think about it,” Hunk says. “Shiro’s the one who cried in Keith’s manly, loving arms after his breakup, then asked Keith to move in with him. Keith’s just respecting the boundaries here. Shiro has to give the signal for when he’s ready to move on, you know?”
“That is not what’s happening,” Keith says. “At all.”
Pidge hums and taps her fork on her chin. “I buy that.”
“I don’t,” Lance says. “They’re already rubbing ding dongs.” He stares intensely at Keith. “You can’t fool my eyes.”
“Trust me,” Keith says. “I’m not even trying to.”
Lance crows.
“I don’t think he meant that the way you think, buddy,” Hunk says.
“I absolve you of all responsibilities and judgment regarding your molasses-pace relationship with Shiro,” Pidge says.
“Our relationship is perfectly normal,” Keith says, “because nothing’s going to change. Shiro doesn’t like me like that.”
Pidge looks at him with pity.
“I’m serious,” Keith says. “Stop.”
“Are you sure you’re being serious right now?” Lance says. “Because there’s no way you’re being serious right now. Even I can see that he’s your sweet, loving sugar daddy with a massive heart boner for you.”
“Shiro’s just my friend,” Keith says, choosing not to address any of the unaddressable. “My best friend. That’s it. He loves me like a brother.”
“Dude,” Hunk says, sounding very sad about it.
Keith gives him a withering look.
“Like I said,” Pidge says, fingers flying over the screen of her phone, “I’ve absolved you of all responsibilities and judgment. Whatever whacked out misunderstanding is going on here, I’m blaming it on Shiro.”
Lance leans towards her. “Who are you texting?”
“Matt,” Pidge says. “If anyone can make Shiro see sense, it’s him.”
“Or,” Keith says, “you could just let me and Shiro handle our own relationships, like adults. Which we are.”
“Nah,” his friends say as one.
“Sorry, bud,” Hunk says.
“Are you really sure you aren’t at least boning?” Lance says. “There’s no shame in a friends with benefits situation, you know. That’s, like, pretty much the sugar daddy scenario anyways.”
“We are not,” Keith says. “Either of those. Just—no.”
“I’m just saying,” Lance says. “This is a judgment-free zone.”
“Lay off, Lance.” Pidge elbows him. “If Keith says they’re not, then they’re not.”
“Thank you,” Keith says.
“Even if they totally should be,” Pidge adds.
Keith sighs. Of course it was too good to be true. “I take it back. I hate all of you.”
“Aw, we love you man,” Hunk says, slinging an arm over his shoulders.
“This is for your own happiness,” Pidge says.
Keith disagrees, but he’s done arguing. Keith knows what he wants, and, more importantly, he knows what Shiro doesn’t want.
Shiro loves him the same way he loves the rest of his friends, and no amount of meddling is going to change that.
He and Shiro aren’t going to be like that.
Ever.
Keith’s accepted it, which is why he’s fine with pushing the conversation with his friends out of his mind, but—there’s something that came up that he hasn’t thought about before, something that he somehow can’t stop thinking about now.
Whenever his brain has a chance to rest, it’s plagued by the thought—what if Shiro actually is his sugar daddy?
It haunts him, the question popping up between students as he holds his office hours in the afternoon; springing to his mind between customers during his evening shift at the boba shop.
Shiro’s not his sugar daddy, is he?
And what exactly even is a sugar daddy, anyway?
His fingers twitch to find out, but he’s busy enough during the day that he doesn’t really get a chance to dig into it until he’s back in the confines of the apartment. Shiro’s got some kind of dinner thing at work, so the place is empty when Keith gets home.
Good.
He sits down on the couch with the fried rice and tea eggs he’d snagged from work and looks up sugar daddy on his phone. Wikipedia seems like a good, somewhat neutral place to get answers (ignoring the systemic sexism and racism that Shiro occasionally rants about) so he starts there.
He hits a disambiguation page, since there’s apparently a candy bar named Sugar Daddy, which is… weird. Keith squints at the summary of the other page.
Sugar daddy (slang term), a man who offers support (typically financial and material) to a younger companion
Okay, well, that’s… not strictly untrue. Shiro is an older man who helps Keith pay for stuff. That can’t be the only criteria for calling someone a sugar daddy, though.
Keith clicks into the article. The page title changes to sugar baby, and he cringes.
A sugar baby is a person who receives cash, gifts or other financial and material benefits in exchange for company.
Okay, now this Keith disagrees with. He’s spending time with Shiro because he wants to, not because Shiro’s giving him things in exchange. He’s grateful for the gifts, he really is, but he’s going to pay Shiro back one day. His company alone doesn’t make up for any of it.
It usually includes sex or intimacy.
Definitely none of that—though, admittedly, not from lack of interest on Keith’s part.
But lack of interest on Shiro’s definitely means that’s out.
The paying partner is typically wealthier and older.
True.
He skims the rest of the article. Apparently that’s as much as he’s getting in terms of an explanation about the thing, and the rest of it is more about various statistics. According to Wikipedia, most sugar babies—as someone who’s the recipient of such gifts is apparently called—use their gifts on tuition and rent, followed by books, transportation, and clothes.
Keith sits in the apartment that Shiro pays all the rent for, where he had come from the campus that Shiro is helping him cover tuition to attend, surrounded by textbooks handed down from when Shiro’d taken the classes, wearing sweats that Shiro had bought for him, and considers his life in the context of this new information.
Okay. So.
Keith can’t say for certain that he isn’t a sugar baby.
He has to admit that most of this definition applies, except for the part saying that sugar babies get all this in exchange for their company or sex or whatever, because Keith is getting all this for… nothing in return?
It’s not really nothing, because Keith is damn well going to pay it all back, but Shiro always acts like he doesn’t even necessarily want it back.
Which means Shiro’s performing the role of a sugar daddy without reaping any of the associated benefits.
This feels… wrong.
Keith’s never thought too hard about why Shiro does all this for him. They’re friends, best friends, and Shiro loves his friends with his whole heart. That’s always been enough of an excuse for Keith, but now that he really thinks about it, it’s not like Shiro’s paying rent and tuition for any of his other friends.
He hates to think of himself as some kind of charity case, and Shiro’s never treated him like one. But does that mean there’s something about Keith that’s worth the extra attention? Is Shiro actually getting something more from his company? Is Keith somehow filling some kind of relationship void left behind by Shiro’s ex, but without the actual relationship that comes with it?
And does that make Shiro Keith’s sugar daddy?
The more Keith thinks about it, the more the signs are pointing to yes.
Keith’s sprawled all across the couch and having a mild crisis about it all when Shiro comes home.
In fact, he’s having so much of a crisis that he doesn’t even notice Shiro’s come home until his frowning face pops into Keith’s field of vision.
“Hey,” Shiro says, resting his forearms on the back of the couch as he peers over at Keith. “You okay?”
Keith studies him for a moment. His eyes are bright, and his face is a little flushed from the cold. His lips are a little chapped, but still infinitely kissable.
This is the face of a sugar daddy.
A sugar daddy whose brows are furrowing and furrowing in concern. “You look like you’ve been going too hard again. Did you take a nap today?”
“I’m your sugar baby,” Keith says.
Shiro stares at him for a long, long moment. Then he says, “Okay, I think someone needs rest.” He taps the back of the couch. “Come on, bed.”
“You’re my sugar daddy,” Keith informs him.
“And you’re delirious,” Shiro says. He taps the couch again, harder. “C’mon, it’s sleep time.”
“You’re my sugar daddy.”
“I am not your sugar daddy.”
“You pay for this apartment,” Keith says. “And part of my school. And, like, at least half of my food.”
“Because I’m your friend,” Shiro says. “I’m not going to let you suffer when I can help you.”
“Living in a shoebox apartment near Daibazaal Square and eating cup ramen isn’t the worst thing in the world,” Keith says.
“Someone got stabbed there three days ago,” Shiro says. Then he sighs and puts a hand on his forehead, shoving his fluff vertical. “That’s not the point. Keith, I’m doing this because I want to, and not because I’m expecting anything in return from you, so—“
“Right, so you’re just a sugar daddy but without the daddy,” Keith says. A Shiro-shaped sugar cube.
“I—I guess?” Shiro says helplessly. “Where are you going with this? Where is this even coming from?”
“It’s an observation,” Keith says.
“...uh-huh,” Shiro says, unfortunately with all the skepticism of one who knows Keith way too well. “Don’t get weird ideas, Keith.”
“What weird ideas would I get?”
“I don’t know,” Shiro says. “Trying to think of weird ways to pay me back? I’ve told you before, I don’t want you to worry about paying me back. And I especially don’t want you trying to come up with some sort of sexual favor scheme or something.”
“Who said anything about sexual favors?”
“You!” Shiro says. “Talking about sugar daddies!”
Keith picks up his phone and unlocks it. It opens to the Wikipedia article, the Wikipedia-community-approved definition staring at him in black and white. “It just says in exchange for company, and that it usually includes sex or intimacy. That doesn’t mean it’s always sex stuff, right?”
“Where are you reading this?” Shiro says, with more suspicion than Keith thinks is warranted or fair. It’s not like he’s on some sketchy website or something.
“I’m on Wikipedia.”
“You’re using Wikipedia as your source on sugar daddies?”
Keith frowns. “Do you know a better source or something?”
“No!” Shiro says, too forcefully in Keith’s opinion. “I just wouldn’t use Wikipedia. That’s like going to Wikipedia to learn about BDSM. Keith, stop looking up BDSM on Wikipedia.”
Keith reluctantly closes the tab.
“I’m not your sugar daddy, all right?” Shiro says.
“But you’re sugaring me,” Keith says.
“Please don’t call it that.”
“So you just don’t want to daddy me?”
“Please don’t call it that, either.”
“I’m just trying to understand,” Keith says. “From my perspective, you’re doing the sugar daddy thing without the sugar daddy benefits.”
Shiro looks at him for another long moment, then sighs. “I need to be sitting down for this.” He rounds the couch, picks up Keith’s legs, and drops them off the side to make room for himself.
Keith scoots himself into the corner so he can pull his legs onto the couch and give Shiro more space.
“Let me just think about how to say this for a second,” Shiro says, leaning back against the couch and pinching the bridge of his nose with his metal hand.
Keith watches him as he thinks and breathes, and after a few minutes, he finally lowers his hand.
Shiro inhales, and exhales, and says, “Like I’ve said before, I don’t want anything from you. That’s not what—that’s not how our relationship works. I’m helping you because I want to, and not because I want something.”
Keith nods. Shiro’s made that clear enough before.
“I never want you to feel obligated to do anything or say anything for me,” Shiro goes on, “and that includes living here. If you’d rather live somewhere else, on your own, you can, and I’d still like to help you pay for it so you don’t have to live somewhere where I’m going to be worried about you dying from mold or, you know, getting stabbed to death. And it’s because I care about you, not because I want anything in return.”
He stops and looks at Keith, intently, and Keith nods. “I get it.”
“Are you sure?” Shiro says, but his voice is gentle as always. “I’m not keeping score, Keith, and I don’t want you to either. That’s why I’m not comfortable with you talking about paying me back, or trying to keep some kind of record. I know money can ruin relationships. I don’t want it to hang between us. Pay me back if you want to, but I’m really, really not expecting it. And not because I think you can’t pay, but because I don’t want you to feel like you owe me. Does that—am I making sense?”
“Yeah,” Keith says, because it’s not really anything different than things Shiro has said or implied before. But with the seriousness Shiro’s approaching it with now, Keith’s starting to think they should’ve sat down and actually had this conversation a long time ago. “It sounds like you’ve been worried about this.”
Shiro laughs without humor. “Kind of, yeah. Money’s more trouble than it’s worth, half the time. Especially getting it involved in relationships. You remember Adam’s whole—thing. But I can’t not offer to help you.”
“Why not?” Keith says.
“I just can’t,” Shiro says.
Keith keeps looking at him.
“Are you really going to make me say it?” Shiro says.
“If I knew what you were going to say,” Keith says, “then I wouldn’t have asked.”
“Right.” Shiro smiles wryly. “Okay. It’s because I care about you, Keith. A lot. That’s why I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew you were living somewhere horrible when you could be living here, with me. I—the reason I suggested it is because I thought you’d handle it better than if I just offered to pay for an apartment.”
“I thought it was because you needed a new roommate,” Keith says, “since you had time left on your lease.”
Though he’s realizing now that that excuse doesn’t really hold up. When people have to fill a roommate spot like that, it’s because they need help covering the rent.
Shiro is paying all of the rent.
Shiro shifts. “There was only one month left when Adam moved out.”
Keith has no idea how to react to that.
“I was going to stay anyway, even if you hadn’t moved in,” Shiro says quickly. “I probably would’ve just made the other room into an office or something. So you don’t have to feel like me staying here was because of you, or anything like that.”
Shiro can say that, but Keith’s seen the amount of stuff Shiro has, and the amount of space he takes up. It’s surprisingly little for such a large guy. He doesn’t doubt that Shiro would have downsized to a one-bedroom after the first year of living alone in a space this big.
He clenches his fist. “I’m not worth all that.”
“It was my call,” Shiro says. “And you’re worth it to me.”
Keith frowns. “Even if that’s true—”
“Even if?” Shiro repeats. “Don’t say it like I’m lying. You’re worth it, Keith. I’m telling you, you are. And—you still don’t believe me.”
“You’re just…”
“Just what?”
Biased. Being nice. Something.
Because Keith isn’t special. He’s not some kind of prodigy. He doesn’t have any special skills that make him stand out from anyone else.
He’s a fucking hard worker, but that’s all he is.
Shiro’s gaze rests on his face, and his frown grows deeper and deeper at whatever he sees there. “Keith, you—you’re amazing, you know that? You do everything in your life at full intensity, whether that’s the way you learn or the way you work or the way you love your friends. And I want to help you do the things you want to do and become the person you want to be without having to work every single second of your life, and without having to worry about a roof over your head or where your next meal’s going to come from. Because I know you’re going to change the world.”
That is—
Too much.
Way too fucking much.
Shiro’s words wrap themselves in a coil around his heart and throat, squeezing until he chokes and tears leak out. He coughs and brushes his eyes with his shoulder and struggles to get himself under control. “What the fuck, Shiro. You can’t just say things like that.”
“It’s the truth, and I’ll say it if I want to,” Shiro says, stubborn and steadfast as he always is.
Keith rubs his thumbs against his fingers, and can’t come up with any sort of response.
“You don’t have to say anything back,” Shiro says. He smiles wryly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn this into such a serious conversation. I just—I really want you to understand that I really am just doing this because I love you, and I don’t want anything from you in return. As long as that’s clear, I’m happy.”
“I get it,” Keith says. “I mean, I feel guilty about it. But I get it.”
Wait.
“Did you just say you—love me?” Keith says, because he’s heard Shiro say it before, but not like this.
Shiro smiles wryly. “You mean that’s not painfully obvious at this point?”
“No!” Keith’s heart beats faster.
“I mean, I basically just admitted I tricked you into living with me.”
“Because you care about me,” Keith says.
“Because I love you,” Shiro corrects.
“Like a bro love,” Keith says.
Shiro laughs. “Definitely not like a bro love.”
Oh god, his friends were completely right.
“You do want to daddy me,” Keith says in realization.
“Keith—no, we just had that entire conversation about—”
“No, like, as separate things,” Keith says. “Not like a sugar daddy but like sugar and a daddy.”
Shiro stares at him with vague regret. “Is this your way of telling me you have a daddy kink?”
“When did I say that?”
“I mean,” Shiro says, “I just confessed my feelings to you, and here you are, talking about daddies—”
Keith tackles him mouth-first, and Shiro lets out a startled yelp as they both go careening over the arm of the couch.
Keith manages to throw his hands behind Shiro’s head and shoulders to soften the blow, but they still end up sprawled across the floor, Shiro’s knees hooked over the couch arm and his arms wrapped around Keith.
They’re still close enough to kiss, though. So Keith does just that, dragging himself just a little bit more up Shiro’s body and pressing their lips together. He’s careful, and Shiro’s gentle in return, his hands running soothingly along Keith’s back.
It’s so soft it’d feel almost chaste, except for the way that everything inside him is burning.
“I love you,” Keith says in a rush when he pulls back. “I really—so much, you don’t even know.”
Shiro smiles. “I’d say the near-concussion was a big hint.”
“Sorry,” Keith says with a wince. That part definitely could’ve gone better.
“It’s fine.” Shiro runs his hands along Keith’s sides. “I’m not complaining about the end result.”
Keith hesitates for a moment. “So, uh. What is the end result, exactly?”
“Whatever you want it to be,” Shiro says, and kisses him briefly. “As long as it involves more of this.”
Keith smiles shyly and gives him a quick peck back. “That’s fine with me.”
“But no sugar daddying,” Shiro says, squeezing him lightly. “That’s where I draw the line.”
“So just daddying is okay?” Keith says.
Shiro squints at him, but he’s smiling. “Are you sure you don’t have a daddy kink?”
Feeling bold, Keith drags a hand through Shiro’s hair. “Why don’t you come find out?”
Shiro looks honestly stunned for a moment. Then he laughs. “Wow, okay. Do you even know what a daddy kink is?”
He has a vague idea, but— “I’m sure Wikipedia could tell me.”
“Can’t believe my boyfriend gets all his sex knowledge from Wikipedia,” Shiro says, and Keith’s heart is suddenly too full to even pretend to take offense.
“Can’t believe my boyfriend is apparently a closet kinkster,” Keith says. “What kind of sketchy things do you have in your nightstand?”
Shiro hums, unhooks his knees from the couch, and rolls them over so he’s straddling Keith. He leans down, lips by Keith’s ear, and says, “Why don’t you come find out?”
“Not fair,” Keith says faintly as Shiro laughs and stands.
“All’s fair,” Shiro says, grabbing onto Keith’s hands and hauling him up.
Keith doesn’t let go once he’s standing. He squeezes Shiro’s hands in his, looks into his eyes, and says, with all that he is, “Thank you. For everything.”
Shiro squeezes back, hands warm and reassuring over Keith’s. “Always.”
The silence settles over them for a moment, quiet and steady and sure, and Keith basks for a moment in the realization that this is it. This is happening. He and Shiro are—are.
Shiro moves, drawing Keith closer, and the mood lightens, just a bit, but the love lingers. “Race you to the bedroom?”
“And when I win?” Keith says, tilting his head back in challenge.
Shiro laughs. “Then you can have anything you want,” he says, leaning close enough that Keith can feel the whisper of hot breath on his lips.
“That’s not a lot of incentive,” Keith says, eyes on Shiro’s lips.
“No?” Shiro murmurs.
They’re close, so close, and Keith would gladly spend the rest of his life like this if he could.
“I don’t need anything else,” he says, “not when I have you.”
If there’s one true thing in Keith’s life, it’s this: he loves Shiro, Shiro loves him, and here, in each other’s arms, the world couldn’t feel more complete.