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When Shiro first found Keith, she’d been practically unsalvageable. Done. Broken. As though a fundamental part of her had died back when her father did, and she’d never fully recovered. Or maybe it had started even earlier. Maybe she’d always been flawed in some cataclysmic way and that’s why her mother had left her so young. Why everybody left her, in the end.
Not Shiro though. At least, not yet.
Looking at her girlfriend now — Shiro’s star-white hair flying across her face and into her mouth that she refuses to shut while her 90s playlist blasts from their speakers — Keith marvels at just how easy it is. To look. To breathe. To smile .
To settle in her skin and feel a peace in her soul that she wasn’t sure someone like her could deserve.
They’re one day into a ten day road trip. Uprooting themselves and travelling across the country all in the hope of a chance at a future. Their car is old and rusting at the wheels, the windows get stuck about three quarters down, but all of it is utterly perfect.
“Babe, ice cream!” Shiro shouts at a break in the music. Pointing towards the third stand they’ve seen with a sign that claims they're the best in the west .
“Shiro,” Keith tries in an exasperated voice, but it’s lost to her fondness. Pinned and completely helpless beneath those bright, avid eyes.
So, fifteen minutes later, mint chocolate chip pooling nice in her belly and licking the taste of Shiro’s ice cream from her lips, they’re back on the road. Keith too distracted with pulling out into traffic to stop Shiro from replaying a song they’ve heard at least six times already. She even smiles, chuckling to herself at Shiro’s large, shit-eating grin.
She still refuses to sing though. It doesn’t matter how far she’s come in these past seven years, there is absolutely no way Keith would ever be caught singing along to Mariah Carey’s ‘Heartbreaker.’ But if she hums it under her breath while Shiro belts the lyrics a half a key too high, well… only Keith has to know about it.
****
“Ugh, I’m so bored,” Shiro whines two days later.
Gone are the evergreen forests of their home and all that’s left are thin little trees and dry grassy knolls. They haven’t passed anything interesting in over twelve hours. Nothing but forgettable towns and straight, flat highways. Keith gets it, she does, but Shiro…
“Are we there yet?”
“Do not even start with that,” Keith warns her. They still have a long way to go.
Shiro pouts at her and Keith rolls her eyes because the woman beside her is absolutely ridiculous. Adorable — with her cute little top knot and t-shirt that’s patterned in tiny avocados that look like cats (avo cat os , Shiro calls them) — but still ridiculous. She also continues to whine in her seat, so when Keith sees a sign for something called the Mystical Woods , she already knows that they’re going.
Clearly, it’s a tourist trap meant for children. The giant billboard full of cartoon fairies that peek out behind large floral lettering and another sign a half a mile later calling it an “easy stroll through a magical kingdom.” But Keith looks at Shiro, her long legs cramped in a half crossed position, and decides that if it stops her from complaining for even ten minutes it’ll be worth it.
What follows, however, is the poorest excuse for “magical” that either of them have ever seen.
The woods are filled with nothing but trolls. Like, literal plastic troll dolls from the 80s, placed around a concrete path that weaves through sparse and flailing saplings. It’s like some sort of Lord of the Flies type shit. Raggedy dolls lost in the forest. Their sun-beaten faces silent and watching. As Shiro and Keith travel between them their melted smiles warp and waver, not even the twittering birds or trunk split sunrays taking away the chill they inspire. Keith even swears that one has a knife but Shiro only laughs. “Keith, that’s a gardening tool.”
Shiro even maintains it until about halfway down the path when both exits are blocked from sight and Shiro stops dead in her tracks.
“Oh my god,” she breathes, eyes widening. A barking laugh punched out of her.
Because hanging up from the branches of a tree swings a doll. Dangling limp from copper wires that loop directly around its neck and strung like some sort of sinister warning. Logically, it’s probably just slipped from where it was strapped, but like—
“I told you,” Keith whispers and grabs Shiro’s hand. Pressing herself closer and muttering, “creepy ass trolls.”
This time, Shiro has no reply, and the woods don’t get better from there.
At the end of the path there’s a very terse and lifeless teen but thankfully not — which would’ve been entirely plausible at this point — a psychopath. He works at the gift shop and asks if they want a souvenir photo taken of them, pointing to a backdrop of glittery vomit that looks like a five-year-old must have drawn. With wobbly rainbows, weird looking unicorns and, yes, more trolls holding questionable gardening spades. Forking out the ten bucks for it is kind of a no-brainer.
Cackling with glee and back in the safety of their car, Shiro clutches the picture between her fingers and beams. “This is going on the fridge for sure!”
If it wasn’t for the twinge in Keith’s chest, she’d have to agree.
Back at their place there’d been a whole slew of photos in their kitchen. An oasis of memories both timeless and treasured. Like the photo booth strips from the arcade Shiro often drags them to, or the ones from that night they only remember in bits and pieces thanks to Matt’s damning photographic evidence. A shot of their terrified faces in that nightmare fueled forest would fit right in.
Leaving had been hard for Keith, their apartment, the first real home she’d had in a very long time. Her heart had bled as they’d pulled from the curb and she might have even teared up, but she also knew that sometimes home could be more than a roof and some walls.
She reaches over the gear shift and rests her hand on Shiro’s thigh, feeling the warmth of bronzed skin cooling now that the sun is setting. Shiro tucks the photo into their glove compartment and smiles in a way that’s only for Keith. She tangles their fingers and lifts them up to kiss Keith’s knuckles one by one.
Sappy and besotted, Keith turns her gaze back to the road and drives. Their hands locked tight together.
****
Driving through the badlands, three days after the mystical woods, their air conditioning finally fails. It’s hot as fuck outside — the glass thermometer stuck to Keith’s sun visor burning a hole in the fabric — and it feels as though they’re stuck in an oven. Sweat permeates Keith’s seat and peels with a schlick when she leans forward against the dash.
Shiro’s not doing great either. She’s trying to hide it, but she’s a terrible actor and even worse at keeping things from Keith. Her face is flushed, her hair piled messily on the top of her head and her undercut literally drips. Heat has always been hard on Shiro’s health.
“You wanna take a break?” Keith asks, as casual as she can.
Shiro only grunts.
Pulling up her phone, Keith leans back, though she’s loath to do so. “There’s a town coming up with some sort of tourist centre,” she says while reading their itinerary. Suddenly, her eyes go wide. “Holy shit. Shiro. It says there’s a fifty foot dinosaur!”
Shiro blinks at her. It isn’t much, but it’s better than the half scowl and the way she’s been rubbing at her shoulder when she thinks that Keith’s not looking. “What?”
“Like a giant T-Rex in the middle of the city. Ooohh, there’s also a slushy stand at the bottom and apparently a little splash pad for kids, but fuck that, let’s go!”
Frowning, Shiro looks like she’s going to protest, which is how Keith knows that she’s really in trouble. Because these kinds of kitschy traps are Shiro’s thing, not Keith’s, and if she doesn’t want to stop it’s because she’s in too much pain to think about anything other than pushing through.
So, Keith resorts to something she rarely needs to. She turns so she’s fully facing Shiro, peering up at her sweltering partner through the fringe of her lashes with full blown puppy dog eyes. “Pleeeaaaase.”
And like a sucker, Shiro falls for it. Everytime, Keith is pleased to note.
The town is small. Mostly just tourist shops, a few places to eat, and one really, really, big dinosaur. They lounge in its shade, the spray from the splash pad misting over them with a breeze that hadn’t been felt in the car. Keith watches Shiro suck her slushy until her lips, tongue, and even the lines between her teeth turn a bright and vibrant red. Wet jean shorts cling to her thighs from splashing in the water, transparent bits of her white tank showing off her unfairly sculpted abs. Her shoulders are looser too, not quite so high around her ears.
Early on, Keith realized how Shiro would hide it. Folded down between a thin smile and slightly flexed jaw. Bitten back with a laugh that never landed as light as she intended. Even when Shiro’s disease took her arm, she tried so hard to cover up her agony. She was always so brave and selfless and Keith’s lungs clenched at the thought.
“You know,” Shiro says, looking up from the activities pamphlet she’d grabbed at the slushy stand. “There’s a hotel close by that’s Dino themed.”
Keith squints at her. “And?”
“Aaaand,” Shiro says, “we could stay there tonight, maybe ask for the herbivore floor if you want.”
“Herbivore floor?” Keith yanks the pamphlet from Shiro’s hands. Sure enough the themed motel has three floors; herbivore, carnivore and omnivore. Each room dedicated to a different prehistoric reptile. “Who even?”
Shiro leans back on her hand, lips quirked but small, the lines around her eyes barely crinkling. She’s still a bit flushed, cheeks looking red though it could be the reflection of her slushy. Keith sees the grooves still etched in her skin. The bags beneath her eyes, though it’s only midday and sees Shiro’s suggestion for what it is.
“Okay,” Keith says carefully, “but if the Dreadnoughtus room is taken, I walk.”
That gets a better smile, a small amount of crinkle. “I doubt there’s a Dreadnoughtus room,” Shiro chuckles.
Keith looks her in the eye, as perfectly serious as she can be when looking at the person that makes up her everything. “I. Walk.”
There is, in fact, not a Dreadnoughtus room, but they settle for the decidedly less cool Brontosaurus room which is really just a few local artworks slapped across the walls. Shiro, on pretense of ‘testing out the comfort of the bed,’ lies down and never gets up, her soft snores whistling through slightly chapped and parted lips. The clock reads five pm. Sitting down beside her, Keith feels her forehead, hot and clammy and worrying. Sweeping the hair out from her eyes and away from her neck, Keith eases Shiro out of her flip flops and cuddles up into the front of her. Resting her head above Shiro’s heart and counting out it's straining beats.
In the beginning, Keith loved this. Secretly craving that closeness yet too afraid to let Shiro know what she needed. Shiro, however, had learned to read Keith pretty early too and she would gather Keith up into strong, sturdy arms and lay her out across her chest. Her large breasts a pillowy comfort and her heart a steady pulse that soothed. Now, Keith counts them carefully. Each beat a precious reminder that Shiro’s still here. That there might still be time.
In the middle of the night, Keith wakes to Shiro shuffling around, to a kiss pressed against her shoulder and more slowly dragging towards her nape. Keith wriggles back and hums content, resting her hand over Shiro’s palm that skates along her stomach.
“Thank you, baby,” Shiro whispers and Keith smiles sleepily.
She’s cooler to the touch, hopefully in the clear. Keith can’t help her sag of relief.
“Love you,” Keith mumbles, squeezing her hand. And with Shiro’s breath against her neck, she fades. Safe and held in Shiro’s touch.
****
“Fucking idiot!” Keith yells as she peels around the complete asshole that cut her off about thirty seconds earlier. “Where did you learn to drive, huh?”
He flips her off and Keith grits her teeth and guns it, ignoring the way Shiro grips into the seat beside her. They’re about twenty hours out from their final destination, and aside from the air conditioning and Shiro’s episode everything else has been going great. Shiro’s recovered and seems to be fine but for Keith it had been a startling reminder. A slap in the face as to why they were on this trip in the first place. Maybe that’s the reason she now catches fire. Something that’s easy to do when the world’s worst drivers are swarming around her.
First with the asshole, and now with this woman she’s stuck behind who’s going the actual pace of a snail. Impatiently she drums her hand against the wheel, pulling out to pass as soon as that double yellow line breaks to dashes.
“Get off the road, Grandma!” Keith shouts.
“Keith,” Shiro tries, then yelps as Keith veers back into their lane.
“What?” she snaps. “She drives like an old lady.”
“That’s because she is!”
Keith huffs but doesn’t say anything, knowing that if she did it’d only be something nasty. There’s a rage in her chest that burns. A nameless something choking her airway. Shiro stares at her hard, and Keith’s too much of a coward to look her way, letting her foot fall heavy against the pedal instead.
When she tailgates the next car, spewing hatred over their stupid stick family stickers that even include their goddamn pets, Shiro has finally had enough.
“Pull over,” Shiro says, her voice gone stiff. Keith has half a mind to rev the engine, jaw rolling and fingers tightening when Shiro adds, “now.”
All Keith wants is to leave this stretch of highway in the dust, but Shiro never uses that voice. The one that implies that she’s done with Keith’s shit. Up ahead a gravel pit stop rolls into view, and begrudgingly Keith takes it, pulling up beside the lake they’ve been speeding along, with its crystal like surface reflecting the hills and a small bit of sun peeking out from the clouds. She shifts to park but doesn’t cut the engine.
Shiro's eyes bore holes through the side of her skull, but Keith waits her out and keeps her attention forward and focused. Choosing to search for cracks in the windshield that might echo the fissuring one through her sternum. She stares at them and doesn’t notice Shiro’s clicking tongue.
“Keith, talk to me,” Shiro tries again, a little softer, a lot imploring.
Keith pulls back a frustrated growl and bites her cheek. She doesn’t say anything at all.
“Keith?”
She pretends the clouds are interesting.
“You know what? Fine.” She hears Shiro mutter about a minute into her silent treatment.
From the corner of her eye she sees Shiro shift, unbuckling her seatbelt and wriggling forward. And then…
Shiro takes off her shirt.
Keith’s too shocked to forget not to look, whipping her head as Shiro pops the buttons of her shorts. There’s nothing beneath but a cotton white bra and a hot pink thong and when she toes off her shoes and steps out of the car almost completely naked, Keith outright squawks. “Shiro! What—?”
But Shiro is on a mission, ignoring the honks of passersby and picking her way through a path to the lake that glitters clear in front of her. Her butt cheeks dimple as she goes, the muscles of her thighs hard and flexing. Even her shoulders ripple with strength as she walks with purpose straight into the water that must be freezing. It’s not until she’s up to her waist that finally she turns.
Eyes sparking, Shiro calls, “You coming?”
And Keith wants so badly to look away. That smug face and quirked eyebrow pushing at all of her buttons. But then Shiro smirks and slips beneath the surface of the lake only to pop up covered in goosebumps and nipples out on full display in a soaking wet and incredibly see-through bra. Viciously, Keith kills the engine and rips herself out of the car, seething as she stomps her way to the edge of the lake.
“Shiro, what the fuck?!”
Said woman simply wades further out, giving Keith little choice but to go in after her. Keith tears at her clothes until she’s down to just a thin cami and panties, mud squishing grossly between her toes where the water laps against them.
“Come on, I’m serious. Get out of there.”
“You’ll have to come and get me,” Shiro sing songs and Keith just about fucking loses it.
She goes crashing through the lake, water splashing, and stumbling as she walks. Tadpoles, or whatever the fuck are swimming at her feet, panic and skitter away. “I swear to fucking god,” she says, “when I get there…”
Honestly, she has no idea what she’ll do, but drowning Shiro seems most likely. Especially when she only laughs and dives beneath the water, resurfacing even further away.
“Shiro,” Keith half yells and Shiro does it again, popping out another six feet from shore. “Shiro!”
When she dives again Keith thinks she’s deep enough to jump in after her, but the water is murky with kicked up silt and Keith can’t see where Shiro’s gone. She spins in circles and tries to catch where she’ll surface next and doesn’t expect the hand on her leg that suddenly drags her under.
Keith’s still screaming when her open mouth hits the water.
It rushes through her lungs and up her nose, half the lake swallowed down her throat. When Keith resurfaces, hair on her face and coughing, Shiro starts to bust a gut. Doubled over and laughing at her like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen.
“Y-you look like… a drowned… kitten,” Shiro gasps and braces herself on her knee.
Shocked and soaking, Keith spits the water from her lungs, shaking her head to dispel it from her ears and it only makes Shiro laugh harder.
“Yeah?” Keith asks, but doubts Shiro hears her. “I’ll show you drowned.”
Then she lunges, Shiro’s shriek heard only for a moment before Keith’s on her legs and pulling them both down. Shiro squeals and she squirms, slippery limbed and fighting for freedom as they tumble and tussle and very nearly do drown each other.
You’d think Keith would have the advantage, but Shiro’s been swimming for years. She slips like an eel through Keith’s fumbling grasp, somehow pulling Keith further out until she’s up to her neck and trying to climb Shiro’s back like a tree. Shiro flops under, spinning and turning beneath the waves to throw Keith off while Keith clings now for safety only.
“Shiro,” Keith gasps as they surface for air. “Stop.”
The water chills as Shiro dips again. Dousing the fire that raged in Keith’s veins and clearing the smoke from her dizzy head. Shiro’s still warm beneath the surface, the only thing that is in this frigid lake. Keith manages to attach herself like a baby koala to Shiro’s front, wrapping her arms around Shiro’s head and her legs tight at her waist.
“Stop, I give!” she shouts, coughing and spluttering all the while. Shiro laughs in her face and the sound is musical.
When she’s finally sure that Shiro is done, heaving for air and blinking back droplets, she releases her death grip and tries to push back. She gets caught by Shiro’s arm at her waist and her glare is not nearly as effective when there’s snot and lake water pouring out of her nose.
“What the fuck?” she croaks, but even that has lost its charge.
“Aww,” Shiro coos and giggles a little, sparkling mischief still there at her lips. She lets go of Keith to pull some kelp and bits of sand from her tangled disaster of hair. “I’m sorry, baby.”
Pouting, Keith crosses her arms. “No you’re not.”
“Keith.”
Keith turns away.
“Keith. You were starting to look stabby. I had to do something.”
She peers over her shoulder, sagging just a little. “I wasn’t getting stabby.” But yeah, okay, she definitely was.
Shiro snorts and pulls Keith back into her embrace, drawing her face to the crook of her neck and shoulder. The last of Keith’s torrent anger melts beneath Shiro’s touch and tiredly, Keith nuzzles in.
The waves caused by their fight brush gently at their ribs, raising goosebumps held at bay, for now, by the heat of Shiro’s body. Keith counts Shiro’s heartbeats beneath her hand and screws her eyes shut tight.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Shiro asks, fingers gently combing Keith’s hair and lips brushing her forehead.
Squeezing her for warmth and comfort, Keith feels like a failure and wishes she were better at hiding her turmoil. Patiently, Shiro waits but it’s not too long before Keith mumbles. “I guess, I’m kind of freaking out.”
She’s tried so hard not to let it show. To be the rock that Shiro needs who’s full of solid, supportive strength. But every minute draws them closer and all the fear and howling anxiety she’s tried to ignore has only gotten louder.
Keith trembles. Tactless she blurts out, “this isn’t just for me, right?”
“What?” Shiro tries to look at her.
Keith swallows thick. “I mean you want this too, yeah? Because we’re almost there and I just… what if something happens , you know? What if you don’t— if things go wrong — I’d never forgive myself if, if—”
Suddenly Shiro is crushing her. Her arm like a vice up the middle of Keith’s back and the side of her face pushing into her temple. “Hey, shhh, no,” Shiro says at her ear, steady fingers wrapping the base of Keith’s skull. “Keith, baby, no.” Keith gulps and she shivers, as much from fear as relief. “I want this, I swear. And nothing is going to happen.”
Keith makes a scoff. “You don’t know—”
“Yes,” Shiro growls, “I do.” Pulling back, she glares at Keith, not aggressive but passionate. Like some of Keith’s earlier flames jumped the gap. “Nothing can take me away from you.”
She sweeps her thumb beneath Keith’s eyes, moist, but impossible to tell from what source. Keith doesn’t think that she’s crying but the noise she makes sure sounds like a sob. “Promise me?” she asks in a moment of weakness.
Because they both know that Shiro can’t. They both know that despite the projected success of this upcoming trial there are no guarantees and no one that’s tried to give them any. They’re both intelligent, pragmatic women but this is what they need right now. Wild vows and crippling oaths.
“Yes, baby, I promise.”
Keith kisses her then. As passionate as Shiro’s pledge and full of clawing desperation. Buoyant in the water, Keith wraps herself once more around Shiro, wrestling still, but with lips and bites and bruising grips. Cars honk and others catcall but all they know are each other. Mouths sliding, hearts syncing. A shared heat just for them.
Keith whimpers and Shiro sighs, breaking from her lips to kiss her throat and whisper. “I’ll never give up on you.”
Fluttering shut her burning eyes, Keith twists Shiro’s hair and tries to believe her.
****
When they arrive at the private hospital a day later, Keith has somewhat settled down. She’s still terrified, but then so is Shiro. They’re together though and they’ve talked it out so that’s got to count for something.
“And this is where you’ll both be staying,” the doctor says as they follow her into the room. Their own private suite on the inpatient floor.
Keith tries not to gasp as she takes in the view, the stretch of the city laid out beneath a two bedroom apartment that’s undoubtedly nicer than anywhere she’s ever stayed.
Shiro grins beside her. “This place is nice.”
“Yes,” Dr. Alforson, Allura as she’s asked to be called but Keith can’t get there, says. “A place for you to relax. I hope that in time it’ll feel like a home.”
They’ve been given a tour of the clinic already. Have seen the lab where they perform miracles and met with Shiro’s nurses and doctors. They’ve taken pictures for articles and signed Shiro’s life quite possibly away and now they stand with the woman that holds their precarious future. Dr. Alforson was a brilliant woman, a geneticist and, some say, an alchemist. Her life’s work and impending clinical trial certainly sound like magic.
She was intimidating, yes, but incredibly kind. The sort of woman you can’t help but feel at ease around, something that Keith will sorely need.
“There’s rooms in the back and the kitchen is fully stocked, but there’s a market a few blocks down if you need anything.”
Shiro drops her bag at the island in the kitchen and whistles as she walks to the window. Keith watches her silently, memorizing.
“I just want you to know how grateful I am to both of you,” Dr. Alforson says, standing just inside the doorway. “Without your bravery, this trial would not be possible.”
She looks at Keith who really doesn’t know what to say, it’s not like she’s doing anything. Luckily, Shiro comes up behind her. “Thank you, Allura. I’m nervous, but hopeful.”
Attempting a smile is not in her wheelhouse, so Keith just kinda leans into Shiro and lets her better half take the lead.
“Yes,” Allura agrees. “As am I. But I promise you, I’ll be there every step of the way.”
She doesn’t reiterate what they already know. Doesn’t go through the spiel about how her breakthrough method of gene therapy and stem cell transplantation has been tested rigorously and successfully in the mouse model, or how they’ve passed all of the FDA protocols. Keith’s grateful for it, even if she’s still unsure. Time, now, will have to tell.
Turning for the door, Allura pauses at the threshold. “Try to get some rest. Tomorrow will be a very big day.”
With their arms holding each other too tight, Keith’s pretty sure that neither of them get a wink of sleep. Shiro’s heartbeat certainly never settles down.
But the big day comes for them anyway, and as they wait in the lobby for Shiro’s name to be called so she can start the chemotherapy that will allow her corrected stem cells to be transplanted, Keith feels a strange sort of calm settle over. A jittering in her chest that kind of feels like nerves, but a soothing of her breath that’s light and airy. Close to the feeling one gets for that brief second of time before they jump from a cliff.
A cure.
Shiro might be patient zero — no person having undergone this treatment yet — but if it works, she might also be the first person cured.
Keith can’t even imagine what the future could be like because Shiro’s illness has always just been there . A part of herself and her flawed DNA. Keith could hate it when it made Shiro sick or sapped the energy she still should’ve had, but it was so much a part of their everyday life that it’d shaped Shiro into the woman she was . To accept Shiro and not her disease was a disservice to the woman that Keith so desperately loved.
The woman who was wringing her hand against her seat and looking about two seconds away from falling apart.
“Hey,” Keith says, gently nudging her shoulder into Shiro’s. “What do you think we should do first?”
“Hmm?” Shiro asks, distracted.
“What should we do when you’re cured?”
Lifting her eyes to Keith’s serene face, Shiro just sort of… stares.
Gently, encouragingly, Keith smiles. “I was thinking that maybe we could travel some more.”
It takes a minute for her mouth to work, but when it does Shiro grins just a bit. “Oh, yeah?”
“Mmm, yeah. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
Huffing thoughtfully, Shiro straightens in her seat and rubs at her jaw. She knows what Keith’s doing — it’s really not subtle — but she indulges her anyway. After a moment she says, tentatively, “Somewhere… hot.”
Keith startles a laugh. “Really?”
“Yeah, like maybe India or Egypt.”
The sound Keith makes is way too delighted. “Egypt? Like to see the pyramids?”
“Why not?” When Shiro looks at her, her eyes are glittering. “They’re supposed to be one of the wonders of the world, right? We could visit them all.”
Now Keith outright giggles. “All of them?”
When Shiro shrugs, her hair falls into her face. She looks like an actual angel. “As long as I’m with you, I could go anywhere.”
And, god, talk about world fucking wonders. Shiro slouched beside her — haloed in sterile white fluorescents, pale faced with sick worry, and still completely incandescent. This beautiful woman who’s wide open heart and iron willed determination might literally beat her shitty genetics. Keith reaches for her grinning face, sweeping along the crest of her cheek and thumbing the corner of her mouth.
“Okay,” Keith whispers, falling closer, “let’s do it.” She rests her head on Shiro’s forehead, tracing her thumb over full, tender lips. “Hey… Shiro?”
Shiro kisses it. “Yeah, Keith?”
For a moment Keith simply breathes her air, softly sweet and endlessly addicting. This isn’t going to be how it ends. The two of them have so many years left to discover. She’s not sure why, but Keith just knows it. “I love you,” she says and means it with every last piece of her soul. It belongs to Shiro after all. All of her does.
Sucking in a quivering breath, just like she did the first time Keith told her, Shiro whispers back. “I love you too.”
“Forever,” Keith vows.
Always .
They don’t hear the nurse come in to retrieve them, but even if they did, in this moment, neither one would ever let go of the other.