Work Text:
❧
Keith comes awake abruptly, trapped in a mess of bedclothes, his lungs heavy and constricted, forcing him to breathe shallow or not at all. Something comes at him—and he holds the punch he was about to throw with the arm he extricated from the covers when he connects the sound coming out of the dark to Shiro's voice: his name in Shiro's voice.
His arm is still raised, hand a tight fist at the end of it. The curl of his hand loosens as Shiro touches it but Keith doesn't lower his arm yet. "I dreamed you died." It's not a lie: he has, in the past, for almost a year, had recurring dreams in which Shiro died or was found dead. That's just not what the dream was this time.
"It was only a dream," Shiro says and Keith nods because he knows that. "A bad dream. I'm here now. You know the dream didn't come true because we can form Voltron, and that takes five of us."
That's Shiro for you: practical, self-effacing. Unnecessarily so. Keith nods again and doesn't tell him about the dreams where they form Voltron without him, where Keith is the black lion's paladin. He doesn't know who the fifth paladin is but he knows it's not Shiro, because Shiro is gone in those dreams.
The air he's concentrating on breathing is thick with an expectation that makes Keith think Shiro must have said something he missed while he was lost just now, awake but somehow still inside a bad dream, or the memory of one. "What?"
The ambient light is enough for Keith to pick up Shiro's smile; even though Keith doesn't smile himself, something tight uncurls inside him as he looks at the curve of Shiro's mouth. "I said you know I'm here now, because you can touch me," Shiro says. "You can't do that in dreams, right?" He smiles again and Keith knows it's because he's quoting Keith back to himself—this is what Keith said when he asked if they could start sleeping in the same bed, so he could touch Shiro and know that Shiro was really there.
Keith reaches out and touches Shiro now, his fingertips brushing over the shock of hair, settling in it. "They took the color from the world," he says, which is not what he meant to say at all but yeah, it's not wrong, everything was grayscale for a while without Shiro...
It was only a dream, a nightmare, the thing he just awakened from, and Keith knows that. And he also knows that what happened to Shiro was not a dream, not even a nightmare. Or it was a nightmare: a living nightmare for Shiro.
When Shiro was gone, Keith thought about him a lot, awake and asleep. He used to imagine what might be happening to Shiro, wherever he was (because he was somewhere, Keith never gave up on that). Sometimes he'd wake up in a tight tangled sweat not unlike tonight, but unlike tonight nothing would come to him out of the dark on those nights, he couldn't reach out and touch anything the way he's touching Shiro's hair right now.
He looks at his hand, still in Shiro's hair. Looks at the strands stripped of color. He thinks whatever happened to Shiro might be worse than anything he imagined.
"Keith."
Keith blinks and shifts his gaze from Shiro's hair down to his face, lets their eyes meet.
"It's okay, " Shiro says. He touches Keith's hand where it rests in his hair. "I'm here. You can touch me, right?"
The way Shiro is looking at him, Keith wonders what his own expression looks like right now. Shiro is just looking at him and Keith starts to feel like he's waiting for an answer, like it's a real question. Like maybe Shiro doesn't know, sometimes, in the dark of the night, if he's really here or not. Like he needs Keith to touch him, to know himself.
"Touch me too," Keith hears himself say. Something wells up in him, threatening to cut off his breath; he slips his hand out from under Shiro's, takes Shiro's hand and brings it towards himself. He thought he wanted Shiro to touch his throat, to coax him into breathing again, but he knows rationally that he's already breathing and acknowledges that to himself, and doesn't know what to do with Shiro's hand.
He rests his cheek against the palm of Shiro's hand, looks at Shiro's face and lets his own hand drop.
Shiro's thumb strokes lightly along Keith's cheekbone; Keith tilts his head and Shiro's touch glides down to his jaw; and then his throat.
"Fuck me," Keith breathes, eyes closed. He opens his eyes to look into Shiro's and says it again: "Fuck me, Shiro."
Shiro's touch falls away as his hand drops, as he looks off. "Keith."
Keith keeps looking at him, as if he can get Shiro to look back just with that. "I know." He swallows, sets his jaw. "I know you want to wait until I'm ready, but..."
Shiro looks at him now. Not the way Keith wants, though. Shiro's mouth is curved in something that, if you glance at it quickly or if you don't know Shiro, you might mistake for a smile. But Keith does know Shiro and he's looking steadily, not glancing, and he doesn't make that mistake.
"But you're ready now?" Shiro says with his not-a-smile.
"But I need this." Keith feels his gaze flicker but he doesn't look away. "I need you." He swallows and keeps looking, trying to hold Shiro's gaze so Shiro can't look away. "I need you to touch me, as deep inside as you can."
Shiro sits back, puts his hands to his face, covering his eyes. Keith looks at him a moment longer but the gaze is broken and he looks away too. He knows what Shiro is going to say. Knows Shiro is going to get up, that he's going to leave his bed for Keith to sleep in and take himself somewhere else—
"Okay."
Keith looks at him. Shiro's hands are still over his face and Keith can't see his eyes, can't read his mouth. "Okay," Shiro says again, drops his hands and looks at Keith and Keith knows he wants to say something more but Keith doesn't know what it is; he wonders if maybe Shiro doesn't know either.
Shiro leans in and Keith's lashes sweep down as he closes his eyes, moistens his parted lips.
He feels Shiro's forehead touch his, Shiro's palm curved to rest against his nape.
Keith mirrors the touch, his own hand cupping the back of Shiro's neck, and they stay like that for a soft moment.
He moves out of the moment first; he thinks Shiro could live in that moment, and Keith could too—if he didn't need... he cradles Shiro's face, touches his mouth to Shiro's, breathes until Shiro accepts the open invitation and slips his tongue inside.
When they part, Keith says, "Can you turn on the light? Just low. So I can see you while..." His gaze follows his words as they trail off. Keith chews his lip. If he can't say it, how can he be ready for it? He takes a breath and lifts his chin to meet Shiro's gaze again. "So I can watch your face while you're inside me."
"Keith..." Shiro murmurs, and Keith digs down for better words, since the ones he just used aren't good enough—"Fuck," Shiro breathes, reaches out and touches Keith's face, brushes his thumb across Keith's lips. "I want to look at you too."
Since Shiro is touching him, he must feel the heat that rushes to Keith's face, so Keith doesn't try to hide it. Shiro gets out of bed and crosses the room to turn the light on to its lowest setting. More than enough to see clearly. Keith's gaze drifts down Shiro's body, caught by Shiro's hand as it moves to his waistband and pushes down his briefs, which fall to the floor as Shiro steps out of them.
Keith looks as long as he dares; keeps looking longer.
Shiro's hand draws his gaze again, this time going over Shiro's shoulder to the back of his shirt and pulling it off overhead. Keith's breath catches. This is the first time he's seen Shiro shirtless since Shiro got back. Keith had guessed there were scars that Shiro didn't want to talk about, maybe didn't remember anything about but had to live with every time he looked in the mirror—Keith had figured there were scars to match the one across Shiro's face, he's seen hints of the ones curving over Shiro's shoulders and reaching down his biceps, but he hadn't guessed how many there are.
"Do you still want to?"
When Keith looks at his face, Shiro is looking off. "I mean..." He glances back to meet Keith's gaze but doesn't let it tangle with his as he looks down, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. "It's okay if you—"
"I still want to," Keith says. He doesn't know why he wouldn't. He waits for their eyes to meet again, wishes he'd thought to swallow when Shiro wasn't looking at him, swallows now anyhow. "I want you."
He watches every step as Shiro comes back to the bed. When Shiro climbs back onto it, Keith follows his gaze, glancing down his own body to his briefs, wishing he hadn't been so caught up in looking at Shiro that he hadn't thought to take them off.
"Here." Shiro touches the waistband. "Lie back." Keith does, lifting his hips as Shiro draws the briefs down, off. A thrill runs through him as he looks up and Shiro doesn't look back, as he realizes Shiro is looking at him the way he was just looking at Shiro.
"Touch me." Keith looks into Shiro's eyes when Shiro looks up. "You can touch me, if you want to," he says, swallowing the please, moistening his lips to erase any trace of it that might have escaped with his breath.
Shiro holds in the gaze for an unreadable moment before looking down as he reaches for Keith, his thumb tracing the circumference of Keith's exposed cockhead, sending a hot shiver through Keith. "Don't come yet," Shiro says, glancing up; his smile gives Keith another heated shiver.
"I might come just from you looking at me," Keith hears himself say. Knows Shiro was joking; knows he himself is not lying.
The smile fades to a lingering soft curve as Shiro lets go of Keith's cock to brush the hair back from his face. "You can come whenever you want."
Shiro's words sink into Keith, making him swallow on their way down to curl up low in his belly. "I don't want to come until you're inside me." He doesn't want to come until Shiro does but he's not confident enough of his chances to say so aloud.
"Okay." The tip of Shiro's tongue swipes along his lower lip: Keith is so focused on Shiro's mouth, he's caught off-guard by the touch as Shiro takes his hand and guides it down, wraps Keith's hand around himself at the base. "Squeeze if you have to. If you think you're going to come, the physical pressure might help you stop." Keith nods. "Can you." Shiro takes an audible breath as he glances down, then looks into Keith's eyes. "Can you spread your legs for me?"
Keith's hand tightens around his cock before he nods, bends his knees and plants his feet comfortably apart against the mattress.
Shiro's gaze lingers another moment, long enough for Keith to feel the gaze sink into him, doing flips in Keith's belly, encouraging his legs to cant open wider. Shiro's lashes sweep down as he moistens his lips; gaze half-lidded, he braces himself on one hand as he leans down and Keith closes his own eyes all the way, sucking in a breath in anticipation of the touch of Shiro's lips.
He makes an inarticulate sound and opens his eyes again when he feels the soft touch of Shiro's mouth on his thigh. Another inarticulate sound escapes Keith. He squirms when he hears himself, and Shiro pushes himself up as their gazes meet. Keith recognizes the particular furrow of his brow and before Shiro can ask if he's all right, Keith says, "That's not where I thought you were going to kiss me."
"Ah." The furrow eases as Shiro tilts his head, his maddeningly beautiful mouth curved in a smile. "Do you want that instead...?"
"I can only have one or the other?"
Keith doesn't realize his own brow has furrowed until the pad of Shiro's thumb smoothes it. Shiro's hand moves to rest in Keith's hair, then falls away as his gaze does. "You can have whatever you want." He looks into Keith's face, gaze flicking between focusing on one eye and then the other. "Anything—everything I can give you."
Keith does his best to hold the gaze, to hold Shiro and himself in it. "I want you..." Though he trails off, the thought is not incomplete: he does want Shiro, simply and wholly.
Shiro is waiting for more words, though, so Keith gives them: "Fuck me now. Please."
The way Shiro's mouth lifts at the corner on one side as he looks at Keith, like he's smiling unconsciously, smiling from inside without having to think about it, makes Keith flush. "Okay." The smile is still there as he leans in to cup Keith's neck as he kisses him.
When they part, Shiro swings his legs over the side of the bed and reaches under it, and Keith's breath stutters as his heart catapults to the base of his throat, sharpening his inhale and cutting it off.
He thought—he's seen the scar across Shiro's face, he's looked at it every day since Shiro came back, some nights he's meditated on it while Shiro has slept beside him. He's seen the scars on Shiro's legs and he knew there were others, and when Shiro took off his shirt tonight and Keith saw the ones on his arms and chest, he thought...
Keith doesn't know what he'd thought. But he hadn't thought this.
His hand hovers as he shifts to kneel behind Shiro without touching. The scars across Shiro's back are too wide, too dark, they must have cut too deep. They don't look like battle scars... or maybe that is what they are. Keith can't imagine—this is it, the confirmation that it was worse for Shiro than Keith has been able to imagine.
As he looks at the scars, the moment becomes a universe, unspinning...
And then Keith blinks and time starts again, the stars spinning around them once more. As he looks at the curve of Shiro's back now, it strikes Keith that Shiro is still bent over. "Shiro?"
Without moving, Shiro says, "Yeah?"
The furrow of Keith's brow deepens. He thought maybe Shiro wouldn't answer him, wouldn't be able to, but his voice sounds calm, his breathing even. "What are you doing?"
"Letting you look." Shiro's back is steady with the breath he takes now. "Letting you look as long as you want."
"What about touching?" Keith moistens his lower lip so the words won't get stuck as they try to come out. "Is it okay to touch?"
Shiro straightens, not all the way, just enough to look over his shoulder at Keith. His smile this time thickens Keith's inhale so it's almost not breath, so it's something Keith has to swallow down. "Yeah," Shiro says. "It's okay for you to touch."
Keith reaches out and rests his fingertips on the bridge of Shiro's nose. He watches them brush over the scar in one direction, then back in the other, the touch fluttering but never leaving Shiro's skin.
His mouth is surer when it traces the same path, lips parting at the far edges of the scar.
He sits back and looks at Shiro. He knows he should say something but he doesn't as he pushes against Shiro's chest and Shiro lies back, and Shiro doesn't say anything either.
His eyes are still on Keith, though, and Keith takes a moment to breathe in the gaze; sees Shiro breathing too.
"Shiro..." Keith starts, unsure what to say but feeling something should be said.
"Anything you want." Shiro's blinks are so soft, the gaze remains unbroken. "Anything I can give you."
Shiro's legs are still draped over the side of the bed, his feet on the floor, and as Keith moves to straddle him, his own feet hook around the edge. Hands by Shiro's shoulders, he braces himself as he leans down and kisses the scar across Shiro's face again.
His knees bend as he moves down to kiss the scar below Shiro's collarbone, follows it to one traversing his shoulder, goes down. Tongues the seam where the Galran prosthesis is knitted into Shiro's flesh, kisses it. He glances up at the whimper that escapes Shiro: Shiro's eyes are closed, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth. His lashes flutter and even though their gazes don't meet, he reaches for Keith, fingers sliding into his hair, holding on as Keith lowers his head again and kisses the scars, each and every scar; kissing Shiro's skin as he makes his way down Shiro's body.
Shiro's hand slips away as Keith slides backwards off the bed to kneel between Shiro's legs. The tight unspeakable knot he's been trying to ignore unravels and dissolves as he looks at Shiro's cock: free of scars. His chest rises and falls with the depth of his breath as he takes a moment just to look at Shiro's beautiful cock, flushed dark with the blood pumping through it, the head already glistening even before Keith presses a kiss to it.
Keith could spend long moments, hours, days; he could spend lifetimes with Shiro's cock. But there's more, so much more, and he keeps moving down, kisses Shiro's inner thigh; down to his foot, kisses his toes.
When Keith moves back up, Shiro pushes himself fully onto the bed and Keith climbs over to settle beside him. Shiro rolls onto his side to look at Keith. There's a brightness in his eyes, a bright dampness clinging to his lashes, but his gaze is clear. "Do you still want to?"
Shiro can ask as many times as he wants, as many times as he needs to, and Keith will answer him every time. He nods. Shiro smiles; kisses Keith with his smile.
They lie together, tangled up in kissing, tangled up in each other's bodies. Heat thrills through Keith when he feels how hard Shiro is against him; the heat and the thrill intensify when he realizes Shiro must feel how hard Keith is too.
This time when Shiro reaches under the bed for the lube Keith knows he keeps there, Keith takes the moment to catch his breath. "Hey," he says as Shiro straightens up and comes back to him, "do you have sensation in your right hand? Like can you feel things with it?"
Shiro nods. "I don't know how it's possible but yes. It's not as sensitive to touch or temperature as this one," he holds up his left hand, "but yeah."
" In that case," Keith says, giving it consideration, "can you use this one to get me ready?" His fingertips rest on Shiro's right hand, smooth to the touch, cool but not cold.
Even though Shiro doesn't say his name in that tone again, doesn't say his name or anything at all, Keith can read the reluctance in his face, his expression shading away from brightness and closing off—
Keith catches his left hand. "Because I want to do this while you're doing it." He draws Shiro's forefinger into his mouth, tongue stroking the underside. He keeps holding Shiro's hand even when he releases the finger. "And I want you to feel it."
Shiro takes a deep breath, lets it out.
"Shiro?" Keith feels his brows knit as he looks at Shiro. He thought it was okay...
"You don't know what you're doing to me," Shiro says, not quite meeting Keith's eyes.
"Making you feel good," Keith says.
Breath and laughter mix with the "oh" Shiro puffs out. He smiles and does meet Keith's gaze now. "Then I guess you do know what you're doing."
Their smiles touch, open to one another; they breathe each other in through their smiles.
When they part, Keith lies down and spreads his legs for Shiro, thinking of it in words even as he does it, because he's wanted to for so long... He spreads his legs for the fingers of Shiro's right hand and parts his lips for the fingers of Shiro's left hand, suckling contented around his own soft gasps as Shiro spreads him open there.
"I'm going to go inside you now, okay?" Shiro says, and Keith nods, his tongue stroking the underside of the finger in his mouth. His hips buck as Shiro's slick fingertip pushes in, keeps going. Keith's feet come off the mattress as his knees pull back towards his chest in invitation; Shiro accepts, pushing more lube into Keith with a second finger and stretching him inside.
"Fuck~" Keith breathes, turning his head to the side, feeling Shiro's fingers trail damp across his face as his mouth releases them. "Fuck me, Shiro." His hips arch with the pleasure rolling through his body every time Shiro rubs against that spot inside him. "Please fuck me." He reaches for Shiro's wrist, closing his fingers around it the way Shiro told him to close them around the base of his cock if he needed to. He could come like this, from Shiro's hand, and it wouldn't be bad at all, but—"I want you inside me. I want you to come inside me. Please~"
"Yeah," Shiro breathes, his own face flushed as beautifully as his cock. Keith's feet drop back to the mattress and Shiro kneels back between his open legs as he coats his cock slick. Then he tips forward and Keith sucks in a breath as he feels Shiro's cock head touch his hole, press to it like a hot, slick kiss. "Okay?"
Gazing up at him, Keith moistens his lips and nods.
"It's probably going to hurt at first," Shiro says and Keith nods again. "But I'm going to do my best to make it good for you."
"I know," Keith says, because Shiro never does less or other than his best. He doesn't know why that makes Shiro smile, but he doesn't ask because he likes Shiro's smile.
Shiro takes a breath and, taking a cue from him, Keith does too. Then Shiro pushes his cockhead in, and for a moment all the breath pushes out of Keith.
He keeps going and Keith starts breathing again, or doing his best to. Keith feels stretched impossibly; this is so much more than he's ever imagined, and he's imagined a lot. Shiro is going slowly, so slowly, pausing with each fraction of movement to let Keith adjust as he fills Keith with his cock—but it's so much, not too much but a lot—and then Shiro starts to thrust deep inside him, and Keith wants to squirm but he doesn't feel like he can move.
The movements stop. "Keith."
Keith knows that tone. He reaches for Shiro, grabs his arm below the elbow. "No."
Shiro pulls out anyhow.
If he tries to leave now, Keith doesn't know if he'll be able to stop him; he doesn't think he'll be able to take it if Shiro goes.
Shiro lies down on his back, legs together, and holds out his hand. "Here." When Keith takes his hand, Shiro coaxes Keith to straddle him. "Are you okay like this?"
Gazing down at Shiro gazing up at him, Keith nods.
"Do you want to try it like this?" Shiro asks, his cock brushing Keith's backside. "This way you can control how much you're taking, how fast or how slow we're going."
Keith nods again. "Okay, yeah. But." He bites his lip, soothes his tongue over it. "But can you do the first part..." He glances down and off to the side, hoping Shiro doesn't need dirty talk.
"Yeah, I can do that." Shiro smiles again and Keith feels himself ease up inside. He didn't know you could do that, smile so easy and comfortable while you're doing something this intense, but yeah; he smiles too.
Shiro reaches around, using the thumb and forefinger of his prosthetic hand to open Keith up, guiding the head of his cock to Keith's hole with the other, starting to press the tip inside, holding there. The prosthetic hand finds Keith's hip and Keith touches it as their gazes entangle. "Push back whenever you're ready," Shiro tells him. "Just, whenever you're ready."
Keith prepares his comeback for when Shiro adds how it's okay if it turns out Keith isn't ready, but Shiro doesn't add anything, he just holds Keith's gaze, his hand resting on Keith's hip, his cockhead flush to Keith's hole.
Keith takes a deep breath and keeps his eyes open and pushes back.
He takes the head inside him; takes a little more. He doesn't think he has even half of Shiro's cock inside him but this is all he can take.
And it feels good. Keith feels full, more full of anything than he's ever felt; he's filled with Shiro. And the knowledge that there's even more of Shiro, that Shiro has so much more to fill him with, so much that Keith will never be empty again—
God, fuck, it's so good.
Indescribable sensations radiate from the sweet friction of Shiro's cock sliding shallow inside him and rush through Keith as he rolls his hips and starts rocking, Shiro's hands at his hips encouraging him, the cosmos a slow dizzying spin...
"Keith~" Shiro says his name like it's air; breathes his name: "Keith, I'm so close, I'm gonna—"
"Yeah," Keith says, remembers what Shiro said to him earlier and says, "Come when you want to. Come for me."
He wants to add, Come inside me, but Shiro already is; Keith tries to push back and take more of him but Shiro tightens his grip on Keith's hips even as he arches back open-mouthed, angles and holds Keith, doesn't let him take more than he can as Shiro fills him with his come.
Before he realizes it's happening Keith spills out of himself, splashing Shiro's stomach and chest. He tips forward, whimpering at the loss as Shiro's cock slips out of him, whimpering anew as he licks himself off Shiro's skin. He goes easily with the tug as Shiro coaxes him up to kiss him. Shiro deepens the kiss, going into Keith's mouth the way he never has before, and Keith thrums at the realization that Shiro is licking the come from his mouth, tasting him. He wants to taste Shiro too; next time, he resolves, he will.
Shiro rolls them so they're on their sides facing each other. "Are you okay?" He touches Keith's face, and Keith nods, turning the touch into a caress.
"Was it okay for you?" Keith asks, studying Shiro's face.
Shiro smiles, and Keith believes him even before he nods. "It was..." Shiro breathes, smiles again. "Yeah."
Yeah.
They're quiet as they lie together, soft touches slowing, slowing...
Keith stays awake even after Shiro falls asleep, listening to Shiro's breathing, the rhythm of his heartbeat.