First Kisses Are The Best Ones - 1. First Kisses Are The Best Ones

“So, what’s the plan this morning?” Lance asks, hanging over the window hatch instead of doing something useful.

Keith begins to dole out a fist sized balls of ground meat – elk he thinks – into each steel bowl to join the chicken portions already in there. Mountain Ridge Wolf Sanctuary feeds a lot of mouths each day, and it’s always good to get a head start before the howling begins.

“Lance, stop decorating the counter top with your skinny ass and get the water tanker filled up, would you?” Keith rolls his eyes. “You’re even less use than him.”

From his position exactly next to Keith, muzzle pressed lovingly, affectionately, desperately like he’s not been fed in months, against his thigh, Kosmo gives a soft whuff of disapproval. The wolf hybrid’s blue eyes gaze up at him accusingly.

“Sorry bud, I didn’t mean it. You are very useful.” Kosmo wags his tail, and gets a spare bit of chicken skin for his trouble before Keith starts dispensing supplements and medicines into those bowls which need them. “I’m going to feed everyone here – not including you, Lance! - check on Ulaz’s stitches, give Regris a bath because his mange still hasn’t cleared up, and then I’ll go for breakfast at the diner.”

“Again?” Lance arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow. Keith doesn’t know how the man finds the time or desire to have a beauty regime on top of wrangling the five children whom, Keith is certain, will be rushing in around their feet any moment. “Dude, you’ve been doing this for like, three months.”

“What’s your point?”

Keith’s glare is interrupted by – surprise, surprise – ten excited feet and five eager faces with bright blue eyes and ready smiles.

“Can we help feed the wolves, Uncle Keith?” they chorus in adorable unison.

Keith ruffles Amelia’s silvery curls with a grin. She is the eldest at ten, and almost exactly like her mother. They all take quite a lot after Allura, which is good, because despite having a heart of gold, Lance is kind of an idiot.

“Yes, you may. You know the drill!” The moment he speaks, the five children begin to load the breakfast bowls onto the cart in an exact order, so that no one’s meals and meds get mixed up. Kosmo prods little Sarah – the youngest – into line as she races to keep up with her brothers and sisters.

Lance sighs dramatically, like he’s in a movie.

“Look at my little princess.”

“Papi…”

“And all my other darling angels,” he directs at the other children. “You’re all so wonderful.”

“Yeah,” Keith snorts, “they are always more use than you! Right, move out team, let’s go!”

Feeding goes off without a hitch. Keith convinces an elderly timber wolf to lie down and have his stitches examined on the promise of being hand fed the finest steak morsels whilst he does it, and he, Kosmo, and Regris all get soaked and covered in medicated shampoo whilst trying to give the recalcitrant Mexican grey wolf his bath. He showers himself clean under the hose before changing into a fresh version of the only outfit he appears to own – rugged black outdoor workwear trousers and a red t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the sanctuary – and packs himself and Kosmo into the truck to go for breakfast.

Keith had a Reese’s peanut butter cup and a Gatorade first thing, and though hungry, it isn’t the breakfast at the diner he’s actually looking forward to.

The owner of the diner is a slender and severe looking woman who glares at Keith as he and Kosmo step through the screen door. It’s not Kosmo she doesn’t like, because his fluffy highness is accepted pretty much everywhere locally because he’s such a draw, and he knows exactly how to behave to get people on his side. No, Colleen Holt’s ire is reserved for Keith, of whom she still does not approve. Keith winces, giving an apologetic half-smile, but Colleen’s attention is redirected by her son Matt, who flips his honey-blond ponytail over his shoulder and gives Keith a friendly two-fingered salute as he sticks his tongue out.

Kosmo whuffs.

“Nah, buddy. Not today. He likes us really.”

And he does. The good grace of Matt is pretty much the only reason Keith is still allowed into the diner after the debacle of the third time he came for breakfast. But it’s been a long time since then, and whilst this is not an exact science, Keith gets lucky far more often than he strikes out these days.

He orders coffee, waffles, bacon and hash browns from the counter, and takes the mug to turn towards the vinyl booths which line the windows of the quaint, Mom and Pop diner. And just as ever, the third one from the end is occupied by one man, his folded newspaper, and the plate of waffles he is currently expertly reassembling into the form of the Apollo Eleven spacecraft one handed.

Keith knows it’s the Apollo Eleven, rather than any other, because he’s been told this before. Apollo Eleven is the best one after all, it was the one which allowed the human race to touch another celestial body for the first time.

“Hi,” Keith puts on his best, winning smile before the man looks up. “This seat taken?”

The man frowns, and even that is lovely expression on his handsome features, the dark straight brows lowering over his soft grey-brown eyes, the little wrinkle appearing in the space between them as he purses his full lips. And then he spots Kosmo, all two hundred pounds of fluff and muscle with a lolling tongue and one floppy ear – on command, the floppiness is deliberate and Kosmo can still be terrifying if he thinks someone is out to do Keith harm – and his expression changes instantly. Gone is the frown, and the scar slashing across his nose adds an extra crinkle as his face splits with a happy smile.

Even his teeth are perfect. Keith’s so done for.

“Yeah. Oh, I mean- no, the seat’s free, but you guys are welcome to sit.” He gestures with a hand to the opposite side of the booth holding a fragment of waffle Keith fairly certain is about to become the dorsal fin of the space shuttle. “I’m Shiro, who’s this?”

“This is Kosmo.” Keith doesn’t always get to introduce himself – often he has to wait until the end of the conversation – but he never minds. “And he’s very friendly.”

“Hi, Kosmo.” Shiro places his waffles carefully back on his plate – and he is always careful with his gestures, everything done with his sole left arm so deliberate and thought out – and wipes sugary residue from his fingers before offering his hand to the wolf-dog. Kosmo of course, knows Shiro well and doesn’t bother with the cursory sniff, but goes all in for the big head and shoulder rub along hand, thigh, hip, and ribs with his tail thwacking Keith as he does so. “Oh! He is friendly!”

“Only with the nicest people. He’s a great judge of character.” Keith smiles fondly at his dog, but he keeps his eyes on Shiro. “Thank you for letting us join you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Shiro’s eyes and hand goes back to the construction of his waffle space shuttle, but barely a minute passes before his attention in straying back to both Kosmo and Keith. Keith sips his coffee – strong, black, plain, the exact opposite to how Shiro takes his – and smiles softly when the other man’s eyes meet his.

“So… what do you do, er…” Shiro blushes, his hand leaving off petting Kosmo’s ears to clap over his mouth as his cheeks and the tips of his ears turn an extremely adorable shade of pink. “I didn’t even ask you your name,” he mumbles from behind his hand, “I feel like such a jerk.”

“You could never be a jerk,” Keith answers before he can stop himself. Kosmo whuffs, and Keith grins, recovering quickly. “Like I said, Kosmo is a great judge of character. I’m Keith.”

“Keith…”

Keith will never in a million lifetimes get used to the way his name sounds coming from Shiro’s lips. He wants to wrap himself up in the texture of it and never leave. Shiro’s gaze travels to his chest, and he blinks.

“Oh, you work at the wolf sanctuary?”

“I do indeed. You ever been?”

“No. I’ve always wanted to though.”

“You should come up and visit. Kosmo and I will give you the tour; special discounts for pretty boys.” Keith almost winces the moment he finishes speaking. A line like that has landed him in hot water before, and experience has taught him that coming on too strong is just about the worst thing he can do. To his intense relief though, Shiro simply blushes a richer pink.

“You think I’m pretty?” he rushes out in a whisper, biting his lower lip.

“Yes.”

“Oh…”

Keith would kill to find out how far down Shiro’s chest that blush goes.

Kosmo, with ever perfect timing, breaks the heated moment between them by butting his snout into Shiro’s hand, angling for head scratches. Shiro bends to the task immediately and with a serious sweetness which Keith adores.

“Who’s a good boy, Kosmo? Yes, it’s you. You’re a good boy. The bestest.” Shiro is so earnest, and Kosmo sweeps his tail and preens and puts his head fully in Shiro’s lap – Keith is suddenly kind of jealous of his dog – gazing up at him with his big blue eyes. “Good boy, Kosmo. Oh, hey.” Keith suddenly finds that intense and inquisitive gaze turned upon himself again. “Kosmo as in the cosmos? Like space?”

“Yup. Second best thing about being out at the Sanctuary after dark. We have such a brilliant view of the sky.”

Shiro smiles warmly.

“I love space. Always have, even as a kid. I used to want to be an astronaut.”

“Not now?” Keith asks, gesturing with his fork to the unfinished Apollo Eleven of Waffles.

Shiro gives a self-deprecating, one sided shrug.

“No, there aren’t many one-armed space-men. Haha.”

“Still, that’s some fancy work going on with that space shuttle. Will the maple syrup fuel allow you to reach the correct altitude for a take-off into orbit?” The joke lands right, lifting the mood from what could have been the sombre re-telling of Shiro’s first accident – a story Keith knows plenty well by now – and redirecting them to other things.

“Thanks. Well, engineering is practically the family hobby. Pidge is always working on something and I’m a demon with a soldering iron.”

“Oh, I’ll bet.”

It goes easily like that, the back and forth as they both eventually eat their breakfasts, Kosmo making plaintive puppy eyes at Keith’s bacon, Shiro making the same and being remarkably more successful. Then Keith is walking out with him towards his truck, Shiro heading for Pidge’s ancient bright-green soft top jeep.

“This was really good fun,” Shiro says. He’d had this thumb hooked into the front pocket of his jeans, but now his hand wavers. Keith takes the smallest half-step backward, and Shiro catches him around one wrist. Inwardly, Keith preens. “Can I- can I meet you again tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Now it’s Keith’s turn to flush obviously as Shiro shifts his hold until their fingers are interlaced. He expects to be about the same shade as his t-shirt by now. “I’d really like that, Shiro.”

“Same time, same place?”

“You betcha, Hotshot.”

Shiro’s eyes go wide and dark, and Keith grins.

The moment is broken by the overly aggressive honking of Pidge, and Shiro makes his excuses, stopping to spend a long time petting Kosmo, then leaves Keith with a smile and a wave. Keith can’t help his moony grin as he watches them drive away. Kosmo’s soft bark and the thump of his tail wagging against Keith’s leg alerts him to the presence of Matt – still in his apron – approaching. Keith exhales and waits for the man to join him. He never likes to lose sight of Shiro in the jeep before it’s totally necessary.

“Well.”

“Good morning. Great bacon today by the way.”

“You say that like it’s not always great.” Matt drags the tie from his hair, finger scraping it all back before securing the mass once again. Keith always thinks his hair looks like he chopped it with a bread knife. “What are you getting out of this Keith? You strike out all the time.”

Keith turns to frown at him, one hand automatically going to Kosmo’s head, petting over the same spot Shiro did. It makes him seem closer, somehow.

“Why would you say that? Today went great.”

“Fine. It did, I saw.” Matt gives him a wry look. “But you know, in general. You are fully aware that this can’t be going anywhere. So, what are you getting out of it, Keith?”

Keith sighs happily, knowing Matt is rolling his eyes dramatically.

“Because when it goes well, I get to spend an hour getting to know the smartest, funniest, nicest guy I ever met. Who the heck would give that up?”

There is a long pause, then Matt huffs.

“You’re weird. Here, I’ve got a bone for you Kos.” There is a wet chomp as Kosmo takes the freshly de-fleshed pork scapula. It will make an excellent snack. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Keith?”

“Well, he did ask me out again.”

“Keith…” Matt sounds worn, tired well beyond the early hour and the relative stresses of his job can account for. “You know it doesn’t work like that.”

“Yeah Matt, I know.”

They say their goodbyes, Matt returns to the diner and Keith and Kosmo hop up into their truck. Keith knows that Matt is correct – few people know Shiro’s condition so intimately as Matt and his family after all – but he also knows that it must mean something that Shiro has asked him out on a second date twenty-two times now.

Keith grins all the way back to the forest and his wolves.

*

Takashi Shirogane is smart, wickedly funny with a dry gallows humour Keith adores, sweet with animals, and just about the hottest guy Keith has ever laid eyes on. He’s got a jawline which could cut mountains and sculpted cheekbones which Keith is dying to pepper with kisses. His broad shoulders and deep chest under a stretched henley are things which keep Keith up at night. Not the mention the little dance he does by the car on days when things go well and he thinks Keith is no longer watching.

Takashi Shirogane is also an orphan, an amputee since the age of fifteen, and a space nerd.

Takashi Shirogane has anterograde amnesia, more commonly known as Goldfield’s Syndrome, and can’t make any new short- term memories. He has lived with the condition for a slightly over a year, ever since he and Matt were in a car accident where they nearly hit an elk and ended up suplexed around a tree. Matt walked away with cracked ribs, Shiro spent three months in a coma. For each and every day since then, Shiro has believed it to be the same day – Sunday the thirteenth of October – even if the weather is often unseasonal, because that was the day of the accident. Each night when he sleeps, his memory resets itself to that morning and he loses everything he has done or experienced.

Keith knows all this, he’s been told before and unlike Shiro, he remembers. But it’s still galling to be helping out at the Holt’s house and have Sam hand him a stack of identical specially printed newspapers – copies of the one from that day for Shiro to leaf through and discard – from the enormous pile in the big garage to be transferred to Sam and Colleen’s wardrobe in the house, ready to be left on the kitchen counter for Shiro to pick up in the morning.

Keith has been warned off Shiro several times already, but he refuses to give up, and Matt at least seems to think his interest is worth indulging. Truthfully, he thinks they are glad of the help, because between the restaurant and the prep required to re-set Shiro’s Sunday for each and every day, Keith doesn’t know how the four of them remain so chipper. Sam Holt thanks him with a small smile, and Keith exits out the back of the house to find Kosmo waiting just where he was left – like the good boy he is – but now sitting alongside Pidge who is using him as a couch. They are of a big enough size difference to make it work.

“Knew you were here because of this guy. Don’t let Shiro see you, he’ll wonder why you’re at his house. How did it go his morning?”

“Really well, thanks.” Keith grins at the memory of Shiro taking his hand over the table, Kosmo resting his glossy wet nose alongside their knuckles, praying for tidbits as Shiro had told him all about his long-lasting childhood obsession with space. “Hey, did you know that Eugene Shoemaker is the only-”

“-person to be buried on the moon. Yes Keith. I know.” Pidge sounds worn and tired, despite her soft smile. “I try not to hold it against him when he tells me things we learnt together as kids over and over again.”

Keith chews his lower lip. Shiro has told him plenty of things more than once, more than a dozen times, but he doesn’t think there’s anything Shiro could say to him too often. But Pidge has been living with her adopted older brother reliving the same day for sixteen months and Keith can’t imagine the toll that must take.

Pidge stands, petting Kosmo, and jerks her head to get Keith to walk along with her through the prettily overgrowth back yard. There are tumbles of flowers and foliage – nothing Keith can name – but the overall effect is one of exuberant abundance. It suits the Holt’s well.

“Every day he does his workout like a machine. Then he reads three chapters of that damn advanced aerospace engineering book right after lunch, and I have to move the bookmark back to page one-oh-six every night. After that I hand him the paint and a fresh brush and ask him if he’d like to decorate the ceiling in the rec room. I swear at some point the roof is going to become measurably lower with all the layers on it now.”

Keith arches an eyebrow at her. In the months since he first met Shiro, this is the first time he’s ever been told of painting which didn’t happen when they were kids. He knows Shiro decorated his childhood bedroom – before his first accident, the one where he lost one arm and both parents – with dramatic renditions of the constellations.

“What does he paint?”

“You can’t guess by now?” Pidge snorts.

“The stars.” Keith sighs softly. “He paints the stars.”

“That’s our boy. Yup. Come see, but be quiet yeah?”

They loop around to the side of the house. The rec room has a door directly out into the garden, and it stands propped open with a can of paint, allowing a gentle breeze to filter in, and happy noise to waft out. Keith gets Kosmo to wait, and peeks around the door, knowing he mustn’t be seen.

And there is Shiro, stunning in paint speckled black joggers and a NASA branded t-shirt, a slice of his rippled lower abdomen on display as he reaches upwards to place a dot in the centre of Orion’s Belt. The ceiling is deep navy blue, the star scape picked out in white and faint yellow and hints of silver, but completely and painstakingly accurate. Keith is sure, just from one glance, that no astronomer could do a better job than Shiro. The biggest and most delightful surprise though, is that as he paints and pushes his floppy two-tone hair out of his face, Shiro is singing.

Keith knows the tune, it’s hard not to, but he finds himself chewing on his lower lip to keep from grinning like a fool as Shiro changes the lyrics of the famous Beach Boys song to become ‘little surfer boy’. He shimmies his hips as he sings, hands hardly moving as he paints, but dancing from the shoulder’s downwards in a captivating manner which has Keith craning his neck for another long look.

Pidge brings him back to attention with a tug of his shirt at the shoulder.

“He only sings on days when he meets you.” She offers him a small smile, which coming from Pidge, is a big gesture. She’s not automatically friendly to everyone. “It took us ages to work out.”

They start back along the garden path. Keith keeps his fingers in Kosmo’s collar to stop the half-wolf from loping back to go and give Shiro cuddles. Keith knows how he feels.

“Is it always The Beach Boys?” he asks

“Oh yeah. They were his parent’s favourite band. Dad always used to play it in the diner on the evenings when the grownups would sit and talk and drink wine. And me, Shiro, and Matt would dance around and tidy up. We were only kids, and so it would take us three times as long, but it was fun.” Pidge rolls her eyes and turns to look at Kosmo, who gazes back with loving intensity. “And now I know all the words to every Beach Boys song ever released.” She sighs. “And I hate The Beach Boys.”

*

“Hey, you wanna see a trick?” Keith can’t help his grin, because Shiro’s smile is infectious, and they’ve been laughing for the last ten minutes or so, their plates long since cleared away, coffee finished, bill paid.

Shiro raises both eyebrows, running his tongue over his teeth as he does so. Keith tries not to memorize the shape of his lips and the sound they make when they meet.

“Is this going to be like earlier when he ended up in my lap and all over the table?”

Kosmo huffs, knowing he’s being made fun of, and instantly Shiro drops his hand to the big wolf-hybrid’s head to ruffle his ears reassuringly.

“Sorry bud. But you’re not a lapdog.”

“Could you tell him that when he takes over my bed? I swear I’d just go sleep on the couch – except he’d steal that too! He’s such a cuddler.”

“Sounds fun,” Shiro’s voice goes soft and a little wistful for a moment. “Cuddles are super underrated.” His eyes flick up and meet Keith’s for a moment, and Keith is absolutely certain he’s not imagining the pretty pink blush staining Shiro’s cheeks. “Go on then. Let’s see the trick.”

“Well, it’s sort of a joke. “Keith resists the urge to duck behind his messy bangs and hide from the intensity of Shiro’s smile. “Hey Kos! What does the teapot do when the water is ready?”

Kosmo throws his head back instantly, and lets out a howl which is as near a high-pitched whistle as his canine voice box can create. It does attract the attention of absolutely everybody in the diner, and Matt appears from the kitchen, knife in hand, to glare at them.

“Good boy, Kosmo,” Keith says as soon as the wolf drops his muzzle back down to look to him for praise. “That’s the stuff.”

Kosmo barks happily, tail sweeping across the floor, and Keith glances across at Shiro in time to see him clutching at his stomach, vibrating with silent laughter. Keith knows it’s almost certainly Matt’s black expression and the shock of everyone else, which has Shiro in fits of suppressed giggles, rather than the joke itself, but he doesn’t care. It’s worth it to make Shiro happy. Keith is fairly certain he would do anything at this stage to make Shiro happy.

“You trained him well.” Shiro manages eventually.

“Ha! I think mostly he trained me.”

“Maybe you trained each other” Shiro says with much more gravitas than the situation actually calls for. Keith feels warmed by his words though. He’s so done for.

“Maybe.” Keith tries to ignore the time flashing up on his phone as the screen illuminates with a completely unwarranted text from Lance. Keith knows he’s not needed back at the sanctuary until later, and Lance knows he’s busy. A quick glance does indeed let him know that his overly nosey colleague is up to his usual combination of snooping for tidbits about Keith’s love life, and shit-posting ridiculous memes from whatever social media platform he’s tied to these days. Keith sighs.

“Have to got to get back to your animals?” Shiro sounds almost regretful, like he doesn’t want to give Keith the out.

“Less them, and more the apparent uselessness of the other staff.” Keith shakes his head. “But yeah, at some point they’ll need me back.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Shiro stands, tall and gracious and oh so beautiful with his broad shoulders and trim little waist. He offers Keith his hand. “I had a really nice time with you Keith.”

“Me too.”

Keith feels a little moony, a lot head over heels, and that is the reason – he berates himself about his lack of attention over and over again in the coming hours – he doesn’t spot disaster coming until it’s too late.

They are halfway across the parking lot when Shiro drops his hand and breaks into a run, and belatedly Keith looks up to see a parking attendant standing by Pidge’s jeep – Pidge is nowhere to be seen – writing a ticket.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Tax is out.” The attendant doesn’t even look up from their little hand held ticketing machine.

“No, it’s not!” Shiro stops, stock still, his whole-body rigid. “It doesn’t run out until May.”

“Yeah, it did,” the attendant answers, finishing up their tapping, waiting for the little printout of the fine. “Last May.”

“No. Next May.”

The attendant turns to Shiro with a frown of disbelief, and Keith feels the bottom fall out of his stomach as they hand the ticket over.

“I’m not paying this.” Shiro says, and there is the stubborn, no-nonsense tone of voice Keith hears on the days when he strikes out and their breakfast dates don’t go well. “Wait-” Shiro’s brow furrows. “Your machine is set up wrong. That’s not today’s date.”

Oh, fuck.

“I can assure you sir that the date is correct.”

“No, not even a little bit. This says February, and it’s October.”

“Sir-”

“Shiro…” Keith’s not got the faintest idea what’s he’s going to say, but he wants to avoid the total devastation this situation is about to explode into.

“I’ll prove it. Where’s… oh I haven’t got a paper.”

And before Keith can say anything, Shiro has crossed back towards the diner in three long strides, collecting a discarded newspaper from one of the outdoor tables. It’s not Shiro’s newspaper. He thrusts it into the parking attendant's face.

“See, here. October the-” Shiro’s eyes catch up with his voice. He blinks. He blinks again. “But, that’s not…”

Keith puts a hand out to steady Shiro’s shoulder as the man sways, and he turns back to shout for Matt. Shiro’s best friend is already halfway through the door, tearing off his apron as he runs, and Keith gets swept aside as Matt takes Shiro’s hand and his other shoulder, watching his face closely.

“Hey bud, it’s alright, just breathe. Breathe for me.” He snaps his attention to Keith, who dithers, feeling lost. “Get Pidge!”

“But Matt, the paper…”

“Yeah bud, I know.”

“It’s February?”

“You were in an accident, Shiro. Come on, come with me back to the house.”

“An accident?” Shiro’s quiet panic is fast giving way to horror and Keith cannot imagine what it must be like for him to have his reality torn out from under his feet.

By the time Pidge appears, having had to call someone to come in a replace Matt in the kitchen, Shiro and her brother are gone. She climbs directly into Keith’s truck.

“Drive. You’re coming too. I gotta ring Dad; tell him we’re having a Bad Day.”

*

“Oh sweetie,” Sam lays a palm between Shiro’s shoulder blades as the larger man quakes, clutching the folder containing his medical records. “You have been told this before.”

“Sam-” Shiro’s voice sounds deeply pained. “I can’t- I need to hear it from the doctor.”

it is obvious from the defeated slump of Sam’s shoulders that Shiro has made the same request every time there has been a bad day.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, “I would too.”

Shiro rips his gaze from the copy of the newspaper article about his and Matt’s crash, and spears Keith with an accusatory frown. Keith bites his lip: he probably shouldn’t have said anything.

“And you’re… Keith. You’re my friend?”

Keith feels a smile softening his expression at Shiro’s words, because even that acknowledgement is nice to have.

“Well, he’s more than that.” Matt interrupts, shooting Keith a semi-covert thumbs-up. “He’s you’re boyfriend.”

Shiro’s face transforms, flicking through a range of emotions as he stares at Keith in light of this new revelation. There is shock, disbelief, a little beam of pride and pleasure, a frown, a rich pink blush, and then a widening of Shiro’s soft grey eyes as he realises that his emotions are being very openly broadcasted to everyone in the room. He holds Keith’s gaze a moment longer, then ducks back towards the file, shoulder’s hunching.

“I still want to go to the doctor.”

“OK, bud.” Matt swallows his sigh and rubs the back of Shiro’s neck in a soothing motion. “I’ll take you.”

*

At the Neuroscience and Memory Institute, Keith sticks by Shiro. Leaving enough distance between himself and his boyfriend – gods, that feels thrilling to say in his head – to be polite, but keeping close enough so that when Shiro receives the feedback from his CAT scan, it is into Keith’s shoulder he turns for comfort. Keith loops an arm around his ribs, palm flat on his shoulder blade, and hums soft wordless reassurances as he feels Shiro’s tears dampen his shirt.

On the way back to town, Shiro sits in the back of the jeep opposite Keith, hands buried in Kosmo’s fur whilst the half-wolf tries his very best to be a lapdog again.

“I asked you on a date,” Shiro says, his voice tinged with wonder.

“Yeah.” Keith can’t help the swell of pride in his chest. “You do that a lot.”

“Oh.” Shiro buries his face in Kosmo’s thick ruff for a moment and the big dog rolls his eyes at Keith, tongue lolling, clearly pleased as punch to be the centre of attention. “Do we… do we ever go on them?”

“Every morning, Shiro. Only… then they’re first dates again.”

“Oh.” This time, Shiro’s reaction is decidedly mournful. “Have… have we ever kissed?”

“Not yet.”

Shiro blushes. Honest to god actually blushes, and Keith fights the urge to do something stupid and overly familiar. He saves the feeling so that he can crow about it later.

“Oh good,” Shiro says eventually. “I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that.”

When they return to the Holt’s house, Shiro holds out his hand and Keith automatically takes it, linking their fingers together in a familiar gesture. He loves it when he gets to hold Shiro’s hand, because for Shiro – with only one hand to offer – it’s such an enormous gesture of trust.

“So… are you taking me on a date tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Keith answers readily. He does, in fact, have the whole day off tomorrow, though he’ll probably still head over to the sanctuary at the crack of dawn to check in on all his favourite wolves.

Shiro’s smile takes on a confident, cocky edge, very nearly a smirk. Keith loves the expression on him.

“You know… if you wanted to impress a guy, you could show up with peonies.”

This time, Keith can’t hold back his rough sigh of pleasure.

“Aye aye, Captain.”

*

“C’mon Keith, let me hold the camera.”

“You have one job to do already and you suck at it, Lance.”

“Dude…” Hunk sighs from behind the lens. “Harsh.”

“I’m not wrong through. We need this done tonight guys. I still have to edit it before breakfast.”

“That’s far more my area of expertise. I’ll help with the edit.”

“Thanks Hunk. Pass me the cue cards, Lance.”

“You’re gonna tell Lover Boy his life story with cue cards?” Lance snorts, handing them over regardless.

Keith glares at him.

“It’s OK,” Hunk offers kindly, “I can edit that out.”

“Thank fuck.” Keith flips up the stack of torso-sized poster boards, then flushes hotly. He really shouldn’t swear on Shiro’s video.

Hunk chuckles, the picture wobbling a little as Keith shows the first board, emblazoned with ‘So, here’s some things you missed this year…’

“Don’t worry Keith. I can edit that out too.”

Keith nods, takes a deep breath and makes eye contact with the camera lens. He has a bunch of prompts on a whiteboard – borrowed from the sanctuary’s learning centre – which he can read over Hunk’s shoulder, and he’s already chosen a collection of nicer news clips to slice in between the funnier cue cards. Being depressed about the sitting president is going to be balanced out with footage of a glittery toy dinosaur and its human astronauts successfully launching into orbit in the world’s first privately owned spacecraft. He’s got slides from Shiro’s medical records lined up, a digital version of the article about the crash, and a clip provided by Matt of Keith and Shiro on one of their better breakfast dates. Shiro is pretending to fly his Apollo Eleven waffle space shuttle over the table, Keith’s poached egg held aloft on his fork is the moon, and Kosmo is really hoping to become a black hole into which everything might conveniently vanish. It’s one of Keith’s favourite memories.

He smiles, and starts.

“Hey Shiro. I’m Keith…”

*

“So…” Shiro finds Keith leaning up against the back wall of the house, eyes half closed in the morning sunlight. Shiro is still holding the enormous bouquet of pastel pink peonies Keith presented him with before he watched the video. “You’re my boyfriend.”

“If you’ll have me.” Keith can’t help his warm smile, because he loves the way Shiro didn’t ask if Keith was his boyfriend. It was a statement, and that’s never happened before.

“So, you want to take me on a date which isn’t breakfast observed by my entire family?”

“Oh, heck yes.” Keith feels his chest swell, heat and hope pooling in his gut. “Can you swim, pretty boy?”

“Yes.” He blushes. “Why swimming?”

“It was the first thing I could think of where I might get to see you shirtless without sounding like a total creep.”

Shiro arches a thick eyebrow at him and then, Keith is certain he is not imagining it, Shiro’s gaze flicks up and down his body. Checking him out. Keith gulps.

“So, do I get to see you shirtless too?”

“Yes.” Keith answers, his heart shuddering under his ribs.

Shiro’s grin turns broad and confident.

“Oh. Good.”

Keith’s face heats to the approximate temperature of the surface of the sun. He’s so screwed.

*

Two nerve-filled hours later, Keith meets Shiro at the pool.

He spends the intervening time pacing up and down his living room trying to choose between the only two pairs of swim trunks he owns; one is black and one is red and they are the exact same style so it’s hardly the major decision he makes it out to be. He also gives himself an embarrassingly short session with his left hand, in private. He does not need his libido to scare Shiro off on their first non-diner date.

To Keith’s initial dismay, the first person he sees when he exits the lockers with his towel slung over one shoulder is Calixto, Lance’s eldest boy, shortly followed by the bobbing shapes of his four siblings. It’s not that Keith isn’t pleased to see the kids, he always is, it’s just that if they are here then-

“Mullet!”

Keith slumps his shoulders, mostly because otherwise he might deck Lance in front of his children.

“How brave of you to go shirtless when you’re so terribly pale. Would it have killed you to get a tan in the summer?”

Keith rolls his eyes, dragging a hand through his hair.

“Some of us actually work at work, rather than lazing about in the sun with our narrow chicken-chest’s on show.” Keith laughs at Lance’s squawk of indignation. “Please, don’t be… yourself. I’m meeting Shiro.”

“Dude…” This time, Lance sounds genuinely surprised and pleased. “Are you on an actual date? With the guy who is your boyfriend?”

“Yeah, he is.” Shiro’s rich timbre sounds from just over Keith’s left shoulder and he turns with a blush already creeping across his cheeks to see his boyfriend, standing there in grey board shorts patterned with neon pink side stripes, beaming at him like he hung the moon. “I’m Shiro.” He holds out his hand to Lance, who fumbles with the left handed shake. Shiro snorts. “I’m assuming we haven’t met then?”

“No, you haven’t. This is Lance-”

“Well, hey there-”

“-and he was just leaving, right Lance?”

“Papi!” One of the children calls from the diving board, waving enthusiastically. “Uncle Keith! Look what I can do!”

They watch as the small child tumbles and twists with preternatural grace through the air before entering the water with the smallest of splashes. Keith makes an impressed noise; Lance’s jaw is on the floor. Shiro nudges Keith’s shoulder softly.

“Uncle Keith?” he asks, his eyes impossibly soft.

“Er… yeah. Kind of. I’m godfather to at least one of them…” He scrubs at the back of his hair with hot embarrassment. The motion puts his gaze level with Shiro’s bare chest, and Keith can’t help but stare at the expanse of skin and toned muscles. The tracks of several scars only adds to the overall effect of Shiro is hot. Keith swallows audibly. “Um, do you want to go swim?”

“Yeah, sure thing, Keith.”

Shiro takes his hand as they wade into the water, stepping into the foot-high shallows before making their way into the deeper, open section away from the diving boards. There is a secondary pool for lane swimming and those with a competitive streak, and around them people are mostly hanging out, laughing and splashing good naturedly as they swim in directionless circles. When the water is just shy of his crotch, Keith squeezes Shiro’s hand before he let’s go, plunging himself into the water up to his neck.

“The right into the deep end type, huh?” Shiro smirks as he looks down at him, and Keith realise his awful mistake of putting himself at eye level with Shiro’s crotch. Looking at his chest and not staring was hard enough, because Shiro’s shoulders are probably double the width of Keith’s. Getting into two very serious car accidents has done nothing to damage his beauty, and his vigorous workout routine only helps.

“Oh, er…”

“I like it.” Shiro replies quickly, before splashing water directly into Keith’s face.

Keith splutters, taken aback, and then chases after Shiro as the bigger man wades deeper into the pool before reaching out and beginning to swim. He is surprisingly fast, but Keith is quicker, and has grown into a strong swimmer having come most weeks with either Allura or Lance – sometimes both - since Amelia was born. Keith’s pretty good at being a dolphin for his favourite small people. And before he and Shiro can talk, that is exactly what happens as both Ava and Thomas come racing through the water with cries for Uncle Keith to be their aquatic steed.

And even though his time with Shiro is limited – it always is – Keith can’t help but indulge them. It helps, when he emerges from the deep with Ava’s arms clutched around his neck, her shriek of pleasure sounding as soon as she draws breath once more, that Shiro is beaming. He treads water, turning himself with the rudder of his left hand, smiling warmly as Thomas takes his sister’s place. Keith hears little Ava begin to question his boyfriend in her serious, small voice as he drops under the surface with her brother.

“Right, go now and bother your Papi. I’m supposed to be showing Shiro a good time.” Keith commands as he comes up for air once more. “Go, go. I love you all. Shoo!”

He receives a series of splashes and watery kisses for his trouble, hugging them like slippery fish before they slither away in the water, before turning back to find his date. Shiro is sitting on a submerged tiled bench a little way away, the water lapping comfortably at his chest. He waves when Keith spots him.

“Sorry.” Keith gasps as he swims over with strong pulls through the water. “I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

“It’s fine, Keith. Little kids should get a little bit spoiled, especially with attention from their favourite uncle.”

“You don’t know I’m their favourite,” Keith sighs, but he can’t keep the pride from his voice. Lance’s kids are definitely the highlight of his friendship with the guy.

“So… you were going to show me a good time?” Shiro’s tone is gently teasing, but it doesn’t matter, because Keith turns as red as his swim shorts at the words. He fights his desire to sink below the surface, missing the presence of his wolf-hybrid who is so good at providing distraction and misdirection whenever he does something extremely embarrassing.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. That sounds way too presumpti-” He halts, mid-word, silenced by Shiro’s big forefinger over his lips. Keith feels his temperature climb: it’s a wonder the water around him isn’t steaming.

“Stop worrying about every little thing, Keith.” God, he’s never going to get used to the way Shiro says his name. “I might not remember yesterday, but I’m betting it was pretty good if you’ve been indulging my space shuttle waffle constructions for three months. Even Pidge agrees that you’re my boyfriend.” He pauses, making sure that Keith is looking at him when he speaks. “You’re allowed to be a little bit presumptive.”

“O-oh…” Keith drags his fingers through his hair, sweeping his sodden bangs from his eyes, and this time he definitely does not miss or imagine the way Shiro tracks the movement of his arm and the modest swell of his bicep as it curls behind him. Keith bites his lip. He swims closer, until he is holding his balance in the water with one bent knee propped on the bench between Shiro’s thighs. It feels good to be this close.

“They were very nice flowers, Keith.” And that’s a come on if Keith’s ever heard one. It’s a good thing the pool is covering him, because his earlier stress-relief was clearly not nearly enough to quell the effect of Shiro looking at him like that with his lush full lips damp and parted.

Keith leans in, Shiro’s face tilts toward his own, and at the last moment Keith angles his jaw and places a soft, purposeful kiss on Shiro’s perfect cheekbone. When he draws back, Shiro has the tiniest frown between his brows, and this time Keith let’s himself smooth it away.

“Sorry, beautiful. But I’m not having our first real kiss be when I look like a drowned rat-”

“Keith…”

“-and when Lance is unsuccessfully spying on us!” Keith’s words are accompanied by a splash and an incensed squeal from Keith’s co-worker, as he tries to be less obvious about peering at them from around the edge of an ornamental waterfall, and ends up toppling gracelessly into the pool instead. “You would make a terrible covert surveillance operative!” Keith calls, deliberately loud, as Lance resurfaces and turns tail to swim away. He sweeps his hand over Shiro’s shoulder and collarbone as he flashes his boyfriend his best smile. “Now, where were we?”

“You were going to ask me on another date. One where you can kiss me properly.”

Keith echoes Shiro’s smile when he replies.

“Yes, sir.”

*

Keith’s not there yet, the following morning when Shiro watches the video, and it is intensely strange to arrive at the diner and be greeted by Shiro when he enters with Kosmo.

“Hey, Keith.”

Kosmo yanks Keith practically off his feet and goes bounding across to his second favourite person in the whole world. Matt comes around the end of the service counter as Keith shrugs out of his jacket.

“It went pretty well this morning. He asked a lot of questions about you.”

“What did you tell him?” Keith asks, suddenly nervous. He shouldn’t be, Shiro is smiling and fussing over Kosmo, things seem good.

“The truth.”

Keith isn’t sure what answer he was expecting, but the one he gets makes his cheeks plump with a smile. If nothing else, he can always count on Matt to hold him to account.

“The video was a great idea Keith. You did good.” Matt flicks his ponytail over his shoulder with a grin. “Now get going, lover boy is waiting on you.”

Kosmo breaks off his full body adoration of Shiro in order to nuzzle Keith’s elbow when he arrives at the table, before going straight back to rubbing his great wedge-shaped head in Shiro’s lap. Shiro ruffles his ears enthusiastically.

“So, I guess you guys come as a package deal then?” Shiro smiles happily. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you, pup? What’s his name again?”

“Kosmo.”

“Oh yeah.” Shiro nods as Keith slides into the booth. He doesn’t quirk his eyebrow in surprise like he usually does though: someone must have told him already this morning. “Like the stars. I remember.”

“So Shiro, how was your morning?”

“Well, Pidge showed me the star scape I painted yesterday, which was kind of cool. I thought I might add to it and do the Southern Hemisphere stars on the West wall since I can’t paint the floor.” Shiro smiles at his waffles when they arrive, and leaves off fussing Kosmo in order to begin cutting the fluffy golden squares into the customary shapes in order to the make his space shuttle. “You want to come and help me paint?”

Keith feels a pang in his chest, because Shiro has never invited him to do anything sometime when he would actually remember it, but-

“I’d love that, but I have to go back to the sanctuary after breakfast.”

“Oh yeah.” Shiro rubs the back of his neck, frowning softly. “You have one of those ‘job’ things. And it’s not actually a Sunday, is it?”

“No. Sorry, Shiro.”

“It feels like I was just there.” Shiro lays down his knife and sighs at the unfinished waffle Apollo Eleven. “But I guess someone else does my job now. There’s no use for an aeronautics engineer with no short-term memory.”

“Shiro….” Shiro’s self-deprecating attitude is an unexpected side effect of him not living the same day over and over. Keith doesn’t like it. “Don’t ever think you’re no use. You make so many people’s lives so much better.”

“I find that kind of hard to believe. Aren’t I a burden?”

“No! We went swimming yesterday, you were a hit with my nephews and nieces. They though it was awesome to get launched into the pool by the ‘one arm strong man’!”

Shiro leans back in the booth, rubbing his bicep against the backrest.

“Oh… that’s why I was sore when I stretched this morning. I didn’t remember going extra hard on my workout yesterday but-” Shiro rolls his eyes. “I guess I wouldn’t, huh?”

“It doesn’t hurt too much, does it?”

“Why? You offering to rub it for me?”

Keith feels all the blood rush to either end of his body, and Shiro chuckles.

“I suppose you’ve done it before, but would you mind telling me about your day, Keith?”

Shiro rests his hand on the table surface, and Keith takes it automatically. He squeezes Shiro’s fingers.

“Anytime, pretty boy.”

Now, Shiro blushes.

“Hey, Keith? Have we kissed yet?”

“No. Not… properly.”

Shiro squeezes his fingers back hard.

“Don’t you think we should fix that?”

Kosmo barks, startling everyone in the diner. Colleen sticks her head out from the kitchen to glare at their booth, and Keith unashamedly hides from her fierce expression by holding up a menu to cover his face.

“Say, I know you have stars to paint, but do you wanna come to work with me and meet the wolves? I promise it’s not as boring as Lance is going to make it sound when we get there.”

“Sure thing.” Shiro stuffs a bite of waffle in his mouth, then steals most of Keith’s bacon before Keith can stop him. “Let’s go!”

Keith grabs the rest of his bacon, tosses a piece to Kosmo and runs before Colleen can have a go at them both for feeding the wolf inside the diner. Kosmo leads the way to Keith’s truck, and it makes Keith’s heart swell to see his boyfriend climbing into the passenger seat as Kosmo leaps into the back.

“So, who’s Lance?”

Keith starts the engine with a grin.

“Someone I’m really pleased that you’re gonna be able to forget again.”

The sound of Shiro’s open laughter as he pulls from the parking lot is the greatest noise Keith’s ever heard.

*

Kosmo’s adoration of Shiro turns out to be the template for each of the wild canine’s reactions to him. Even wolves like Antok and Kolivan, who are sweet but aloof with him, are like adorable puppies when Shiro crouches down next to the lock out, as Keith holds out their medicine-stuffed meat treats on a feeding stick. He can, technically, hand feed the wolves, but setting an example for the public to understand that wolf ambassadors aren’t pets is far more important. It’s Ulaz who flops onto his back and wags his tail, and Shiro makes such cute heart-eyes at him that Keith wishes it was already after hours so that he could let the pale wolf have belly rubs.

“They all love you, Shiro.”

“Well, they are pretty easy to adore.” Keith clicks his tongue at Ulaz, who quirks an ear in his direction, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth. “Aren’t you buddy?”

“So how’d he get injured?”

“Believe it or not, the last time we took the ambassador wolves out on an educational visit somebody’s toy poodle took offence to us. Kosmo usually does a pretty good job of intimidating any other dogs, but this little fluffball was having none of it. And Ulaz is a great big softy.”

“Poor baby.” Shiro rests his temple against the mesh of the fence, and Keith doesn’t bother to comment on the fact that Shiro is now stroking the back of Ulaz’s paw between the wires. “But Keith’s doing a good job taking care of you, right? He’s a good guy, you’d tell me if he wasn’t?”

Ulaz lets out a soft whuff of agreement.

“Nice to know you’ve got my back, buddy.” Keith finishes up his check of Ulaz’s recovery pen perimeter fence. “You want to come for a walk with me, Shiro?”

“Yes, please.”

The late afternoon sunlight filters through the trees and strikes golden highlights in Shiro’s pale fringe, and Keith wants to reach out and stroke the hair away from his eyes but the angle is awkward as they walk. Shiro holds his hand though as Keith leads them up the dry dirt and pine-needle path which leads deeper into the woods and runs between the far larger pens where the wild wolves from the breeding program are kept. They are young litters, given huge amounts of space and as little human contact as is reasonably and safely possible.

“They come to us from mated pairs in zoos, only ones that are approved by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums like we are though. We help to get them ready for release into protected reservations in the wild in order to help rebuild unstable populations. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch a glimpse of them, but they have twenty-acres to themselves here, so mostly we check up on them using the heat-sensor on the drone and the hidden cameras in the dens and feeding zones.”

“That’s really cool, Keith.”

“Thank you. I really love the wolves here, but there’s nothing better than a wild pack howling in the night.” Keith knows his smile is huge and goofy, but with Shiro, he doesn’t care.

“Have you ever been to hear them?”

“Just once. My dad took me to Yellowstone for my birthday when I was a kid. We sat outside our tent and listened to them howl through the trees and the stars were so bright, and it was… magical.”

“Wow, Keith…”

A tug on Keith’s hand gets him to stop mid step, and he turns back to see Shiro looking almost sheepish. His cheeks are pink.

“Shiro?”

“You think one day you’ll look at me and smile like that?”

Keith is fairly certain his heart is in his throat and his stomach is in his feet. He’s forgotten how to breathe. Shiro tugs his hand again, bringing him closer, until there’s barely an inch of space between their bodies. Shiro looks stunning – even more so than usual – with a shaft of sunlight sparking stars in his soft grey eyes, and Keith can’t help but stare at the shape of Shiro’s lips as he says his name.

“Keith… yeah, just like that.”

Shiro drops his hand to cup his jaw, and Keith let’s himself be led into the kiss. Shiro mouth slots against his and it’s perfect, sweet and soft and without doubt the best kiss Keith has ever had. He sighs against Shiro’s lips and Shiro opens for him instantly. Keith takes the lead and deepens the kiss, licking into Shiro’s mouth without force, moulding himself to Shiro’s chest as Shiro moans softly. He gentles his lips again, drawing back slowly until he’s standing back on both feet. Shiro looks dazed, and Keith knows his expression must be pretty similar.

“Like that?” he asks, more than a little pleased with himself.

“Wow.” Shiro’s blush deepens. “I think first kisses might be the best ones.”

Keith quirks an eyebrow.

“Second kisses are pretty fun too Shiro.”

Shiro’s hand drifts to his neck, thumb rubbing under the corner of his jaw.

“Show me?”

This time, it is Shiro’s tongue which presses at the seam between Keith’s lips, and Keith wraps his arms around Shiro’s ribcage, knowing he would happily drown in these kisses if it was an option. Shiro kisses with a sureness and conviction that his soft blush belies, and its only Keith’s self-control which stops him from pressing too hard too fast. After all, for Shiro, this is their first date.

When Shiro finally pulls back, lips kiss swollen and panting softly, he doesn’t go far, just rests his forehead against Keith’s own, arm tucked as tight as possible around Keith’s waist, keeping them flush together. The sky is mauve and indigo at the zenith, the stars beginning to emerge in ones and twos around them. Shiro’s gaze is impossibly fond.

“Why couldn’t I have met you just one day before the accident?”

Keith traces the plump curve of Shiro’s lower lip with his thumb before kissing him again, because he really doesn’t have an answer to that.

*

Each day is different now, and each of them is perfect in its own way.

Whenever Keith’s schedule allows, he gets to the Holt’s house early enough to pick Shiro up, sometimes able to watch the end of the video with him, and he drives them wherever his boyfriend wants to go. Shiro doesn’t always accept the news of his accident, his brain damage, his memory loss, in the same way, and there are a couple more bad days when he insists on being driven up to the Neuroscience and Memory Institute to hear it all again from the doctor. But those days are few and far between. Sometimes it takes an hour or so of pacing, or staring at the starry ceiling in the rec room – which still gets painted over from time to time because Shiro loves to paint the constellations – for Shiro to take stock of his new reality and decide to get on with it. Some days Keith brings flowers – peonies in every colour and shade he can get – and Shiro invariably smiles and thanks him and holds his hand.

The greatest constant is Kosmo being Shiro’s favourite friend, and that by the evening – regardless of how much time Keith has been able to devote to his boyfriend that day, Shiro is draped across him like a very heavy and contented blanket. Keith can’t and won’t complain, because there is not a single reality where he does not long for more of Shiro touching him.

They take a drive to visit the tree Shiro and Matt wrapped their car around that fateful October Sunday, and Shiro stands for a long time with his fingers resting against the lumpy scar in the bark, Keith pressed along his right side and tucked under the remains of his shoulder and arm. It is fast becoming his favourite place in the universe.

“The tree is healing.”

“Yes.”

“It’ll never be the same though.”

“I suppose not,” Keith agrees gently, “but it goes on making the best of things. It’s stubborn like that.”

“Oh, you do know me well.” Shiro’s voice takes on a soft, playful note, and Keith can’t help but smile. “Did we really go walking with a wolf yesterday?”

“You… remember?” Keith stares at him in shock, because he knows there’s no way this can be true, but he’s never had Shiro tell him things about their past dates before, not like this.

“I started keeping a journal. When I watch the video – and I need to, I know that – I feel like someone else is telling me my life. When I read through my journal it’s my voice, and that’s… more grounding.”

“Makes sense.” Keith smiles. “And I’m in this journal of yours?”

Shiro’s face turns an extremely attractive shade of pink. Keith reaches up to trace the colour across the top of one ear and Shiro tries to hide behind his bangs. The trick doesn’t work for him quite as well as it does for Keith.

“Yes.” The mass of Kosmo romping through the long grass distracts them both. “Kosmo too, of course.”

“Of course.” Keith agrees, shivering pleasantly as Shiro tilts his head to begin peppering kisses across his cheek and down the side of his neck. When he reaches the thin skin right above Keith’s collarbone and begins to lick and suck softly, Keith makes a noise which he refuses to admit is a whimper.

“But Kosmo doesn’t make cute noises when I kiss his neck.”

Keith shivers. Clearly, he has found heaven.

*

They go on a date to the local aquarium. Keith never wants to leave the tunnel under the mixed reef tank where dog sharks and turtles swim lazily about. Shiro is fascinated by a pair of penguins, one of which has a damaged wing and Shiro says they reminds him of the two of them. He spends ages learning about them from their keeper at feeding time. The two penguins – one half the size of the other and with very black feathers – take themselves and their food away into a corner to eat before preening each other with blissful expressions. Keith buys Shiro a little plushie penguin at the gift shop before they leave.

They visit the shore of the lake where he and Shiro splash through the surf and take it in turns to lob a frisbee at each other’s heads whilst Kosmo sprints between them, desperate to catch and kill the silent, floating device attacking his humans. For a guy with only one arm, Shiro is shockingly quick and dexterous, and Keith is the first one to go sprawling on the wet shingle. Kosmo catches the missed flyer, and the game is over in a dozen pieces of well shredded neon pink plastic

On an evening when the sky is clear without a cloud in sight, Keith is tugged along by the hand to the nearest observatory. Shiro’s excitement is palpable, and Keith is torn even when it’s his turn at the eyepiece of the huge professional telescope, because watching Shiro gaze up at the heavens with literal stars in his eyes makes his heart do painful and complicated things under his ribs. They are free to use some of the smaller hand-adjustable telescopes whilst they are there, and Keith presses himself into the solid weight of Shiro’s body, shivering delightedly as Shiro whispers in his ear whilst telling him all about the stars.

Kosmo leads them, charging enthusiastically through the woods, returning every few moments for reassuring head-scratches, until they come to the rocky outcropping at the foot of a beautiful waterfall. The hike to reach it is steep but manageable, and the picture Keith captures of Shiro catching his breath – hand on his knee whilst Kosmo takes the opportunity to lick his nose – is one that that Keith treasures before the day is even over. Colleen provides them with a picnic of all their favourites from the diner and Matt hands it to them with a joke about being no better than grade-schoolers who still need their mom to remind them to eat. Shiro knuckles his best friend-slash-brother’s hair slightly harder than is necessary. They eat the picnic on a couple of boulders by the water’s edge, watching Kosmo play in the shallows while Shiro tells Keith about how Matt once got homecoming and the science fair confused and brought his newly programmed rover-bot to prom instead of his date. After Keith can breathe again, Shiro tells him he has a pretty laugh and they kiss until Kosmo shakes all over them. Then they kiss some more.

It is a clear and unseasonably warm spring day in early March when Keith rocks up to Shiro’s house without Kosmo and with a leather jacket, and a spare helmet borrowed from Hunk. Pidge has a three minute conniption about the idea of Shiro on a motorcycle, until Sam reminds her that Shiro is a full and actual adult.

“And anyway,” Shiro says with a broad grin, “given my track record in cars, how much more dangerous could it be?”

His family does not react well to Shiro’s particular brand of gallows humour, but clearly it’s been a good morning for him with his journal and the video, and he shoots Keith a more private smile as he takes the helmet.

“Good morning, boyfriend.”

Keith is impressed that he doesn’t have a heart attack on the spot.

“M-morning, pretty boy.” He manages when he unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “You wanna come someplace with me?”

“Yes, please.”

Watching Shiro, borrowed helmet now firmly in place, stroke the red paintwork of Keith’s vintage motorcycle, should not be nearly as arousing as it is. Keith jams his own helmet on and works the leather of his fingerless gloves over his knuckles before swinging into place.

“Better hold on tight beautiful.”

And Keith discovers that the reason Shiro is so big and his arm so broad compared to Keith’s narrow waist, is because they were obviously meant to ride double on a motorbike together. Keith’s heart soars.

There is no destination in mind for their ride, just moving freely in the whip of the wind, being close together, feeling Shiro’s heartbeat against his shoulder through their clothes. Keith steers them toward an off road trail he knows of, across random scrubland which is little used outside of the summer when all the local teens bring their cheap dirt bikes out to show off and leave their egos in the dust. Shiro whoops in his ear as they leave the asphalt, and Keith can’t help the feral grin which splits his face, because Shiro’s joy is infectious. He takes the sharp corners a little slower than he might ordinarily do, because whilst Shiro is very obediently plastered to his back, the extra weight on the bike does make a difference. Regardless, it’s exhilarating.

They stop for lunch at the little roadside cafe, demolishing burgers and fries and coke floats without a second thought. Shiro wants a slice of pie, and Keith happily indulges his boyfriend’s sweet tooth, listening for the tenth time to the story of Shiro on the day his parents and the Holt’s all went to a cherry orchard to pick their own fruit.

“I mean, what did they expect two ten-year-old boys to do exactly? We snuck away, ate so many cherries we were either high or sick, and came back with our hands and faces and shirts completely crimson. There was no denying it. Mom paraded us up to the farmer with so many apologies and stern words for us, and told us to give him all our pocket money. He took it too.” Shiro scoops a halved dark red cherry and a dollop of whipped cream up with his spoon and sighs wistfully. “I’m not sure I blame him. Matt said it cured his love for sweet things but I…” Shiro trails off, frowning at the remains of his dessert. “I’ve told you this story before, haven’t I?”

Keith nods. He listens with rapt attention each time, because he loves few things more than to listen to his boyfriend talk in an animated fashion about the things he enjoys, and the memories which matter to him, but there’s no point in lying either.

“Yes, but I love to hear you tell it regardless.”

“Is… isn’t it boring for you?” Shiro is chewing his lip now, frowning properly.

Keith reaches out and smooths away the furrow between his eyes with the pad of his thumb.

“I get to spend time with the funniest, most interesting, best looking guy I’ve ever met. How could I possibly be bored?” Keith reassures him. Then he steals the cherry from Shiro’s spoon and pops it in his mouth, Grinning smugly at Shiro’s affront. “Would love to see pictures of you back then. I’ll bet you were cute with cherry juice all over your chin too.”

“Well, why don’t we find out?” Shiro retorts softly.

And then he grabs the front of Keith’s shirt and yanks Keith into his space. Keith is forced to brace against the counter in order not to go crashing into Shiro’s lap, and lets out a little yelp of shock and delight when Shiro claims his mouth with a forceful kiss. When Shiro pulls back, his lips are cherry red from the fruit still in Keith’s mouth, and Keith’s forgotten how to make words. Shiro’s gaze is heavy and warm as his eyes roam over Keith.

“I might be wrong, but I think first kisses are the best.”

Keith nods, still dazed.

“I say that a lot, don’t I?”

Keith blinks, swallows the remains of his stolen cherry and smiles.

“Yeah, you do.” He sees the unasked question in Shiro’s eyes and makes a show of counting on his fingers. “I think this is the… twelfth, yeah our twelfth actual date. Not counting all the breakfasts at the diner, or anything from before I made you the video.”

“Wow…. What a gentleman.”

Shiro’s hand is resting on Keith’s knee, spoon and remaining pie now completely ignored. Keith swallows audibly.

“I mean… I try.”

Shiro arches an eyebrow at him, a playful grin making Keith’s pulse thunder in his ears suddenly.

“Isn’t there some unwritten rule about you trying something after the third date?”

Keith’s glad he’s not currently drinking the rest of his coke, because he’d have sprayed it out of his nose in shock.

“Ummm… wow.” He can’t help but look Shiro up and down, drinking in the shape of him. “But, it’s not like it’s the third date for you though.”

“Law of averages would still put us at six each. I think that’s plenty.”

“Sh-Shiro?” Keith thinks his brain might have short circuited. Either that or he’s about to end up with really blue balls.

“You want to know what I wrote in my journal yesterday? That I read this morning?”

Keith thinks he nods. He can’t actually be sure.

“‘Keith’s ass looks so tiny in tight black jeans. Bet I could hold the whole thing in just my one hand. Should find out’.” Shiro recites the words with the cockiest grin Keith’s ever seen. Keith knows that this is clearly how he dies: in a roadside diner with the love of his life describing his ass in relation to his hand size. “And then underneath I put ‘You really want to fuck him, soon’.”

“Stars… Shiro.” Keith blinks, but it does nothing to dispel the intense way his boyfriend is watching him. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m gonna do those things too.”

“Holy shit.”

Shiro chuckles.

“Breathe, Keith.”

Keith digs around in his pocket, yanks the monetary contents of his wallet out and slaps it on the counter before grabbing Shiro’s hand and hauling him back out the door.

“Keith?”

Keith hands Shiro his helmet with a smile he knows is more than a little wild. He swings his leg over the saddle of the bike and scoots forward before replying.

“Get on the bike, big guy.”

The tips of Shiro’s ears turn pink before he jams his helmet on, and Keith could not be happier.

For all his excitement, he doesn’t want to rush it, and so they take the scenic route back, winding along back roads through sections of woodland. Shiro shouts in his ear whenever he sees a cool hawk overhead, but is unable or unwilling to let go of Keith in order to point skyward.

The light is fading when the pull up at Keith’s little cabin – which is not quite on the land owned by the sanctuary, but extremely close and surrounded by yet more tall pines. As it is still early in the year and the dark comes quickly, there is a light on over the back porch and a container which upon closer inspection contains some of Hunk’s latest baking. He obviously left it when he came to let Kosmo out and take him for a walk in the middle of the day.

Now, Kosmo leaps all over Keith, only faintly less forcefully over Shiro, before rubbing himself in a full body motion along the bigger man’s leg and hip. He bounds away to the tree line to relieve himself, and Keith goes to stow the bike and the two helmets in the little garage. When he returns, Shiro is sitting on the porch swing, ruffling Kosmo’s ears.

“He’s so pretty, y’know? And he looks at me like I’m…. I dunno, important. Not like I’m a space nerd with only one arm and brain damage.” It hurts Keith to hear Shiro being so down on himself, even if he is only talking to the dog. “He must be special. Oh, why couldn’t I have met him just one day before the accident?”

“Hey, Shiro.”

“Keith!” Shiro doesn’t look guilty about being caught talking to a half-wolf, but he does blush before turning his attention the heavens. “Stars are pretty tonight.”

“You look great in starlight.”

“Keith…” Soft, fond, spoken like a man in love.

“You want to lie out and watch the stars come out? I’ll get a blanket?”

“Just… come here.”

It’s not hard to do as Shiro wants, and Keith steps into the space between his boyfriend’s knees, one hand resting on his shoulder, running two fingertips across the back of his neck. Even with Shiro sitting, it’s not a great distance for Keith to duck down and kiss him, and he doesn’t mind at all when Shiro’s big hand lands on his waist, slipping through the divide between shirt and jeans to slide softly over his skin. When Keith echoes the movement pressing along Shiro’s collarbone as they kiss gently, Shiro gives a little shudder and almost pulls back, but not quite.

“Shiro?”

“You’ve… I read in the journal that we went swimming? You’ve seen me with no shirt on, right?”

“Yes, Shiro.”

“So, you’re not… um- the scars…” Shiro makes a vague gesture toward his residual limb, and Keith catches his hand and kisses his palm with damp lips.

“Shiro. You are beautiful. All of you is beautiful.”

Shiro makes a noise of disbelief, as though this is harder to trust than all the things he learned about himself just this morning. Keith pouts.

“I’ll prove it to you.”

“How?”

“I’ll kiss you until you believe me.”

“Keith…” Shiro begins to protest, but whatever else he was going to say is inhaled with a soft gasp as Keith ducks and places a kiss at the base of his throat. Shiro’s hand finds its way into his hair, and Keith sinks happily to his knees, bracketed by Shiro’s thighs, pulling the neck of his Henley askew as he trails kisses everywhere he can reach. He creeps his fingers up under Shiro’s shirt, and when the bigger man groans openly Keith can’t help but smirk in satisfaction.

It’s a race then, albeit a slow one punctuated with long and lazy kissing, to extract each other from their clothes. Keith retrieves a blanket, petting Kosmo happily as the wolf goes to take over the bed Keith clearly isn’t using, and returns to find Shiro in nothing but his underwear. He’s looking far too sheepish for a man with washboard abs who can probably hold Keith up against a wall with his one hand. He tells him as much.

“Well, I mean, I could…” Keith feels himself get hotter at the words. “But it would be a shame to waste such a nice blanket.”

So, they lie on the blanket, feet pointed towards Keith’s little house, looking up and out at the starry night revealing itself above the tree line. At least, sometimes looking, because Keith can’t keep his mouth off Shiro now he’s been given permission, and Shiro is definitely ensuring that he touches Keith everywhere he can. It doesn’t take long for Keith to wriggle from his boxers and settle himself over Shiro’s lap. He smiles down at his boyfriend, running one palm down his chest from sternum to navel.

“You’re beautiful.”

“I was going to say the same thing. I mean… wow Keith.”

“Really?” Keith snorts. “Even with the embarrassing ‘I’m eighteen and totally serious and pretending not to be a bit drunk wolf pawprint tattoo’?”

Shiro thumbs over the ink on Keith’s hip. Truthfully, he likes it now, fixed and enlarged several years ago into actual wolf tracks descending onto his upper thigh, rather than a single comical paw outline. Shiro’s hand on his lower belly looks huge.

“Pretty, and a bit wild. Just like you.”

“Shiro….”

“Please tell me you brought condoms out with you with that blanket?”

“You wanna… really? We don’t have to.”

“Told you,” Shiro says, his hand moving from Keith’s tattoo to curl low around his hip, cupping his ass and squeezing, dragging Keith closer with the movement. “I want to fuck you, if you want to.”

Keith kisses Shiro, hard, their teeth clacking together in his lustful haste. It works to drown the hint of worry in Shiro’s expression though.

“Yes! Yes I want to. Fuck… baby-”

Shiro shudders.

“You like that, pretty boy?”

“Ungh… Keith…”

“Yes.” Keith settles his hands on Shiro’s waist, shifting his weight until he feels the hard heat of Shiro’s cock dragging against his ass. He grins, biting his lip. “Yes, baby. Fuck me, beautiful.”

Keith has known for a long while that Shiro is really good at following instructions, but until now, he never realised quite how good. He knows – without a doubt – that he’s never had it better. He knows he’s ruined for anyone else; he knows he doesn’t ever want anyone else. He knows Shiro is just as big as his physique suggests, and that being one-handed has done nothing to hamper Shiro’s dexterity. He loses track of the time, the positions, the pleasure. Nothing matters but Shiro, and kissing Shiro, and the sensation of Shiro inside him, and loving Shiro.

He loves Shiro.

“You- Keith-!”

“Yeah,” Keith pants, hair falling in his face, hand braced on Shiro’s shoulder, Shiro’s hand tight on his hip, guiding the rises and fall of their thrusts together. “Yeah, I love you.”

“Fuck… I- Stars, I think I love you too.”

“I’m gonna tell you,” Keith can barely get the words out in between desperate draws for breath and the tight, throbbing sensation of his impending orgasm, “every day. I love you, Shiro. Every day.”

Shiro moans his name, and fucks him so hard Keith sees the constellations with his eyes shut. It doesn’t take either of them long to finish after that, both careening out of control toward blind pleasure, wrapped up in each other. Keith comes to with the top of his head resting on Shiro’s scarred shoulder, Shiro’s strong fingers stroking through his hair and down the back of his neck.

“You’re amazing.”

“Keith…”

“I love you, Shiro.”

Shiro makes a noise half of defeat and half bone deep satisfaction as he coaxes Keith down to lay on his chest fully. Everything is hot and sticky between them and Keith doesn’t care.

“Why couldn’t I have met you just one day before the accident?” he sighs.

Keith doesn’t have an answer for that, so he kisses Shiro as honestly as he can, and in no time at all finds himself rolled onto the blanket for round two.

*

Later when the is night fully dark and the pair of them are thoroughly sated, they share Hunk’s gift of butter and herb laden rolls, painting greasy fingerprints over each other skin before licking them off with soft giggles. Keith goes into the cabin to get them both water and to clean himself up. When he returns with fresh underwear on, Shiro looks a little crestfallen.

“You don’t want me to stay?”

“Oh baby, of course I do.” Keith hugs his boyfriend tightly. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to wake up in a strange place, and without your video and your journal.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll drive you home, pretty boy. But we’re taking the truck.”

This brings forth a cocky smirk from Shiro.

“Too sore for the bike?”

“Yes. And you fucking know it.” Keith kisses him hard, nipping at Shiro’s lip as he pulls back. “Get dressed baby.”

Keith kisses Kosmo goodnight, and the half-wolf flops his tail back and forth, but is otherwise motionless from his upside-down sprawl on Keith’s bed. Shiro holds his hand all the way to the truck, and Keith kisses him before he closes the door and then again across the width of the bench seat before he starts the engine. Shiro’s hand rests on his thigh, thumb tracing the outside seam of the sweats Keith threw on before they left. Keith keeps both hands on the wheel, but it’s struggle. He parks around the back of the Holt’s residence, just as usual, and tucks himself against Shiro’s side as they walk toward the back door.

Keith doesn’t want to say goodbye, but can’t deny that he’s looking forward to a really great goodnight kiss on the doorstep.

Shiro’s arm tightens around him, fitting them flush together, and Keith cups his cheek with a smile.

“My beautiful Shiro.”

“Don’t go.”

“Baby…”

“Just… come lay under the stars with me for a little bit.”

Keith frowns, arching an eyebrow, but he knows his expression is dopey.

“Gorgeous… we just did that.”

Shiro blushes softly, pressing his face into Keith’s hand with a smile.

“I was thinking of a different kind of stars, Keith.”

They end up sneaking through the kitchen to the rec room, where the ceiling is decorated with a map of the cosmos in Shiro’s steady hand, tucked up together on the couch under a blanket. Keith’s boots and shirt join the pile on the floor along with Shiro’s, and the bigger man scoots down in order to place his head on Keith’s chest. Keith strokes through the long pale floof of his fringe, dragging his nails over Shiro’s scalp, adoring the way Shiro relaxes against him.

“Keith? When is your birthday?”

“October twenty third.”

“Oh, that’s soon…” Shiro’s excitement takes an audible dip. “Wait… it’s not, right?”

“No, baby.” Keith kisses the top of his head. “It’s March now.”

Shiro huffs out a soft breath, this kisses Keith’s chest. Keith feels a wash of overwhelming adoration for the man in his arms.

“So… Scorpio then. Hmmm…” Shiro shuffles, wiggling his arm out from underneath the blanket, and Keith mourns the loss of the tight hug instantly. But Shiro gestures up towards the softly glowing stars, picking out the constellation. “See that there, that’s Antares. They call it the rival of Mars, because it’s a little bit red. My parents bought me a comic when I was a kid, in which Mars was a superhero and Antares was his sidekick. It was pretty cool.” Shiro strokes his hand across Keith’s bare shoulder for a moment before gesturing skyward again. “Scorpius is a great constellation, contains a bunch of deep space objects. There’s Messier-six, which is the Butterfly Cluster, and the Bug Nebula, which is this cool bipolar planetary nebula.”

“Yeah?” Keith prompts softly. He’s not dumb, but he only understands about half the words Shiro is using. That doesn’t matter though, because Shiro is shining with the joy of his hobby.

“Yeah. It’s so awesomr! NGC- sixty-three-oh-two is one of the most complex structures ever observed in a planetary nebula! The central star is one of the hottest known, over forty-five times hotter than our Sun. And it’s shaped like an hour glass. It’s so pretty.”

“You should paint it into your star scape,” Keith says, kissing the top of Shiro’s head. Shiro snorts.

“That would take actual artistic skill. And I’m… not so good at that.”

“Baby… you’re a great painter.”

Shiro shuffles his arm back under the blanket and shifts until his face is more level with Keith’s. Keith sighs happily as Shiro’s big arm tucks tightly back around his waist. He allows himself to become happily lost in Shiro’s kisses, even though he knows it has to end sometime.

“You’re eyes are purple,” Shiro says when they next stop to just stare at each other, faces only inches apart.

“It’s just the light.”

“No.” Shiro frowns softly. “They are purple.”

Keith snorts.

“Hey, how hard did you hit your head?”

Shiro dissolves into a fit of snorting giggles, and Keith beams proudly.

“Oh… low blow dude.”

“Yeah, but you love it.”

It’s a joke he’s made before, always with the same reaction from Shiro, who thinks he’s hilarious. But Keith’s learnt to save it for times when none of the Holt’s are within earshot. They do not share Shiro’s particular brand of dark humour.

Shiro kisses Keith’s neck, a trail of little nips down to his collarbone and Keith moves his hands back to Shiro’s hair, rubbing gently at the nape of his neck. They kiss softly, calm and open, simply gazing at each other between long, slow blinks.

“It’s late.” Keith murmurs eventually. “I should go.”

“Hold me a little while longer?” Shiro whispers, his lips almost close enough to brush Keith’s when he speaks.

Keith knows he’ll always be weak for that request, for this man. He squeezes a little, reassuring his boyfriend.

“I’m here, I love you.”

He knows he stays awake a little longer, remembers bringing Shiro’s silver bangs away from his face to kiss his forehead, loves how snug Shiro’s arm is around his lower back. Shiro pillows his head on Keith’s chest, ear pressed to his heart.

Keith knows he can’t stay.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

*

Keith wakes, and for a moment, everything is perfect.

He is warm and happy, totally content and sated, wrapped in his boyfriend’s arm, face pressed into Shiro’s neck after the best night’s sleep he’s known in a long time.

Shiro’s soft grey eyes blink open, his vision unfocused and hazy with sleep.

And then Keith sees the moment that complete and total terror and panic takes over his boyfriend’s mind.

He hasn’t even got half a syllable out before Shiro is shoving him forcefully from the couch, shouting at the top of his voice.

“MATT! MATT!” Shiro scrambles to get up and away towards the door, and Keith stays kneeling on the floor, wincing at the volume and the pain of his banged knees. “MATT THERE’S A STRANGE MAN IN THE REC ROOM!” The sound of feet from upstairs is weirdly reassuring. At least Matt knows who he is, though Keith thinks Pidge might try and kill him regardless. “Why are you naked? Why am I naked? What the fuck are you doing in my house?!”

Keith stares, not because his boyfriend is beautiful even as he snatches up a blanket to cover his boxer clad form – though he is – but because Shiro almost never swears.

“Shiro… please-”

“HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME!? MATT!”

Shiro grabs the nearest object that he can as Keith makes to stand up. The moment he’s on his feet, the spherical solar system paperweight smacks him in the head. Keith staggers, vision blurry, and presses his hand to his scalp. It comes away red. Keith takes a deep breath, and sits back down, cradling his skull gently.

Even after Matt arrives, skidding into the room with bare feet and his hair in total disarray, Keith tucks himself deep into a corner of the rec room. He wants to cry, because not for months and months has Shiro given him the cold shoulder, and never even on the worst diner breakfasts did the man he loves ever look at him with such abject horror. Sam hands him a wad of paper towel, but everyone is focused – rightfully – on Shiro. Keith shuffles into his clothes to the dulcet tones of Matt and Colleen repeating the truth of his accident to Shiro, the brain damage, the length of time it’s been since then. When he hears Shiro break down in tears, half a broken sentence – “can’t believe someone would take advantage of me like that” – sobbed from the other room, Keith knows he can’t hear more. He gathers his clothes and slinks away to the back yard to get dressed.

Ten minutes later, it’s Pidge who finds him sitting by the back wall of the house with his knees pulled up to his chest. His head has stopped bleeding. She hands him a coffee and a toasted bagel filled with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. Keith arches an eyebrow.

“I forget you share Shiro’s abominable sweet tooth.” He sips the coffee. “God, I fucked this up so badly, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” Pidge plops down next to him, jams her own bagel between her teeth and hits him on the shoulder. She winces. “What are you made of, rocks? Ergh…” She sighs heavily. “It could be worse Keith. He’s in there watching the video, and dad called the doctor from the Neuroscience Institute to come see Shiro and to check you out. Our boy has good aim.”

“Yeah, he does.”

“Fucking hell Keith, you even made him beating you up sound wistful. You’re so whipped.”

Keith shrugs. It’s true and he doesn’t care who knows it.

They drink their coffee and eat what is, according to Pidge, a well-balanced breakfast. The doctor arrives a little while later, and seeing that Keith is indeed conscious and not apparently at risk of imminent danger, heads inside to see Shiro. When Pidge stands, Keith follows her.

It’s hard to walk past the rec room where, an hour ago, Keith awoke to what was for the briefest of moments, the best morning of his entire life. But he does, and takes a seat in the kitchen with the lights dimmed so that Shiro’s brain specialist can do a cranial nerve exam before checking his wound.

“Any bright spots in your vision?”

“No.”

“Blurriness?”

“No.” Only when his vision swims, because he won’t allow himself to cry. Not now. This isn’t about him, Shiro’s the one who needs looking after.

“And other than the lingering headache, everything else is normal?”

“Yes.” Keith winces as the kitchen lights are turned back on. “Everything is normal.”

“Not quite how you thought normal would be, eh?” Matt is leaning against the door frame and he reads Keith’s query with a glance. “Shiro went upstairs to have a shower and read his journal.” He turns to the doctor. “So he’ll live, will he Doc? All cleared to go back to his wolves?”

“So you do have a life outside of getting Shiro to fall in love with you every day?”

Keith shrugs again, but tilts his head and allows the doctor to begin dabbing at his minor head wound with antiseptic and a sterile pad.

“Sure. I work at Mountain Ridge Wolf Sanctuary, and we have the breeding program there. Me and Kosmo had big plans though. We were going to go north and study Arctic wolves on Ellesmere Island – all the way up in the Canadian Arctic. Been planning it for years.”

“Really?” Matt frowns at him. “You never said.”

“It didn’t seem so important any more. I’d be gone a year, and I can’t do that to Shiro.”

The doctor concludes his treatment, and steps back with a sigh.

“Young man, you shouldn’t put your life on hold for someone else.”

Keith shakes his head ruefully, because the doctor might be a neuroscientist, but he’s also clearly an idiot.

“I love him. There’s nothing more important than that.”

*

Lance’s horde of surprisingly well behaved and well organised children arrive at the sanctuary after school and Keith is forever weak to their pleading faces when they beg to help him with evening chores. They are very responsible, and Amelia ticks off the list of wolves fed as her brothers take turns pulling the cart and putting the food bowls into the lock-outs, once Keith has dropped the barriers in order to make it safe. They all choose to hike up the hill with him to the enormous enclosure which is home to a litter of critically endangered Mexican grey wolves, who are nearing the end of their stay. Soon they will be ready to be transported south and released into their homelands.

The children check the camera traps and Keith deposits various large-scale meat offerings for the wolves. He knows the wolves are already very good at hunting rabbits, so they are taking care to provide appropriate amounts of donated meat from hunters in the area. Today’s meal is mostly deer.

Keith is surprised to find Pidge and the jeep waiting for him when he arrives back at the main visitor centre.

“He wants to see you.” And there’s no arguing with that. Even if the morning was an unparalleled disaster, there’s nothing Keith wants to do more than spend time with Shiro.

By the time he and Kosmo arrive at the Holt’s, it is raining softly, and Keith dashes to the backdoor with his shirt pulled up over the back of his head. He drops the fabric upon entering, wincing as Kosmo shakes himself enthusiastically, and finds Shiro staring at him.

“Hey.”

“Oh. I wondered if I’d hallucinated all that,” Shiro says, waving his hand in a sweeping motion to encompass pretty much the whole of Keith. “But you actually are that pretty. Damn.”

“Shiro…” Keith blushes hotly. It’s not the reaction he expected, but it’s most certainly welcome. Kosmo, of course, goes rushing up to his favourite person, and Shiro instantly ruffles his damp fur.

“Hey there Kosmo. Are you a good boy? I bet you are.” Shiro jerks his head toward the rec room. “Come with me?”

“Sure.”

Keith perches on the arm of the sofa upon which he slept, and gazes up at the painted constellation of Scorpius, reliving the soft and wonderful memory of the last time he saw it. Shiro sits across from him, holding his journal.

“I’m sorry about this morning.”

“Don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry for. I should have… known better.” Keith sighs softly. “I’m sorry.”

Shiro opens the journal in his lap and turns the pages idly. There are clips and cuttings and photographs, long sections of handwritten prose, little notes, single sentences on a page decorated with stars.

“Tell me about yesterday?”

So Keith does. He talks about riding on Keith’s motorbike and the way Shiro held him so tight. He recounts the burgers and pie, and Shiro’s tales of eating too many cherries. He tries not to get too overwhelmed as he describes the both of them laying out on a blanket, watching the stars.

“It was the first time, for us.” Keith’s not sure he has enough words to describe the heady pleasure of their kisses, or the overwhelming way Shiro covered and filled him and groaned adoration and praise into his skin. “It was...the best I’ve ever had.”

Shiro flushes, the tips of his ears turning pink, but just as Keith feels himself relax into another evening of introducing himself to his boyfriend, Shiro takes a deep breath.

“I heard what you said to Matt and the doctor this morning.”

“Oh?” Keith feels the bottom drop out of his stomach at Shiro’s tone.

“I need you to forget me Keith.”

Keith’s vision skews, everything too close and too far away all at once, nothing in his ears but his pulse. Kosmo’s fur is under his fingers, but he barely feels it. Maybe his head injury is having a delayed effect, or he’s having a stroke, or-

“I won’t hold you back from your dreams Keith. You can’t waste your life getting me to love you every day.”

“What? No- Shiro, please…”

“Keith…” and the way Shiro says his name is still impossibly soft and fond, and it makes Keith’s heart batter painfully against his ribs. “Forget me. I’m going to forget you. I got Matt to agree to record a new video without you in it. He’s doing it now.”

Keith’s universe is imploding, and there’s nothing he can do.

“I think I love you, Keith. It’s all here in this journal… and I know now, you didn’t take advantage of me.”

“But… if you love me and I love you-”

Shiro’s raised palm silences him mid word.

“If I love you, I can’t possible ask you to give up your life – your dreams – to keep doing this.”

“But-” Keith finds himself on his knees, clutching Shiro’s hand, forehead pressed to Shiro’s lap. He does not remember deciding to move. “This is the best thing I’ve ever done. Better than any dream could be.”

“I’m sorry.” Shiro’s fingers untangle from his own, but he only moves far enough to begin stroking through Keith’s hair. Whatever hold Keith had on his tears, he loses it. “But I won’t let you waste your future on me.”

They are silent and still for a long time. Shiro strokes Keith’s hair, and Keith cries. Kosmo presses against his side, head tucking up under Keith’s arm, trying to reassure his favourite people that the world isn’t ending.

Eventually, Shiro clears his throat.

“Keith? I do need your help though.”

“Shiro?” Keith’s tears have run out, the well in his heart is dry and cracked.

“Help me delete you from my journal? I need it, but it’s not as easy as just ripping out pages and-”

“-and typing is still hard. Yeah baby, I know.” Keith swallows the lump in his throat. “OK.” He takes a deep breath. “You wanna do it now?”

“Yes. I mean, I think it’s best.”

Keith nods, turns to pet Kosmo, and stands up.

They settle themselves side by side at the kitchen table with Colleen’s laptop and Shiro’s journal, and Kosmo happily chomps through a bone Matt had saved in the fridge for him, whilst Keith types out all of Shiro’s memories. At least, all the ones which don’t contain him. Nearly every page has to be edited, mentions of his and Kosmo’s presence removed, and as Keith finishes, Shiro tears the page from the journal and places it reverentially into the metal trash can beside him. There are some pages which don’t make it into the new version of the journal at all.

‘First kisses are the best ones’, surrounded by pink and red love hearts, gets torn slowly from the book and placed in the bin with a sigh.

The map up to the falls upon which they had drawn and annotated their route is also destined for the trash.

After three attempts to edit Keith from their date at the observatory, Shiro calls the whole thing off, and that memory too, is expunged entirely from the record.

“He makes sweet breathy noises when I kiss his neck.” Shiro smooths his hand over the words and bites his lip. “I’m sorry.”

Keith doesn’t want to look, but he refuses to miss out on any of these memories. These are the last memories he’ll get to make with Shiro, and each one of them is as precious as it is painful.

There is a page which just says ‘Keith is my boyfriend, Keith is my boyfriend, Keith is my boyfri-’ written over and over and over until it fills the entire page in dense text. Keith clenches his hands into fists and he does not cry; but he’s certain the sound of the page being torn out is actually the noise of his heart being ripped into ever smaller fragments.

Near the end, out of order from the rest of the journal and not yet stuck in, there is a picture. It is one Keith has never seen before, and he has no idea which of the Holt’s took it – though considering the flattering angle and good timing it was probably Colleen – but the memory hits him full force between the eyes.

It’s him and Shiro in the rec room. Shiro os smiling, holding Keith’s hand, Keith’s other palm on his hips, trying to teach Keith to dance. Shiro has his mouth open in the photograph, singing along with The Beach Boys as they take a break from painting the ceiling. Keith has paint in his hair, there is a streak on Shiro’s cheek, and they both look utterly and blissfully happy and in love.

Shiro takes up the picture with a mournful sigh.

“Please… let me keep it?” Keith knows if he has to watch the photograph be destroyed, he will never recover. “I don’t have any of us together. I swear I won’t do anything with it or show it to you or-”

“Hey, whoa.” Shiro’s hand on his shoulder, long fingers stroking over his neck, is grounding and familiar. “It’s OK Keith, I trust you. Here.”

Keith takes the picture with shaking fingers and tucks into his shirt, close to his heart.

“Thank you.”

And then, all too soon, the job is done. Keith saves the journal file and sets it to print, placing the pages as they come from the printer into a binder titled ‘Shiro’s Journal, read this next.’ Keith carries the trash can out to the awning over the back door, out of the rain. Shiro carries the lighter from the kitchen. They stand side by side, and watch all Shiro’s memories of Keith bloom into flame.

“I love you.”

“Keith…”

“Just for today I still get to say it, OK?” Keith knows his desperate anger is the only thing holding back a fresh wave of tears. “I love you Shiro. More than anyone I have ever met. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and you not remembering me isn’t going to change that. I love you.”

“I’m sorry, Keith.”

“I know.” Angry as he is, Keith can’t hold Shiro’s choice against him. The logic is twisted, but Shiro is being noble, his motives are pure. “I’m sorry too.”

Keith whistles to Kosmo, and the wolf-dog gives Shiro’s hand a last lick before dashing out into the rain towards Keith’s truck. Keith is about to follow his canine companion into the cab when-

“Keith!” Shiro is standing in the rain, staring after him. “Can I have one last first kiss?”

Like a leash set around his heart, Keith goes. He is powerless to resist the pull as he closes the distance between them with fast strides, reaching out for Shiro. He wraps a hand around the back of Shiro’s neck, fingers sliding through the soft buzz of his undercut, pulling them together as close as possible as their lips meet. Keith gives everything to the kiss, trying to burn how much he loves Shiro into his boyfriend’s flesh so that he won’t be forgotten. The fit of their mouths together is perfect; every time, it’s perfect. Keith steps back, panting.

“Goodbye, Keith.”

Keith just shakes his head; he can’t say the words back.

By the time he returns to the truck, the rain is no longer enough to hide his tears.

*

“So, what’s the plan this morning?” Lance asks, hanging over the window hatch instead of doing anything remotely useful.

Keith begins to dole out a fist sized lumps of ground meat – sheep he thinks, given to them back in the hunting season and frozen until needed – into each steel bowl to join the bone-in turkey portions already there. Mountain Ridge Wolf Sanctuary still needs to feed lots of mouths every day.

Keith grunts, to show Lance he heard him. It does not stop Lance’s concern.

“Hey bud. You OK?”

Keith sighs.

“Lance, stop decorating he counter top with your skinny ass and get the water tanker filled up.”

“Fine, fine.” Lance grumbles, hopping down and heading for the exterior tap. “You’d think he’d be in better mood by now. It’s been two weeks.”

Kosmo barks in disapproval, and Keith’s hand finds his thick fur quickly.

“He can’t help being an idiot Kos, it’s fine.”

But lately, nothing is fine.

Keith knows the complete and total breakdown of his personal life is not his friend and co-workers fault, and that they do not deserve his temper. But on the days when the melancholy doesn’t threaten to crush him with its weight, he finds himself being snappish over the smallest things.

He feeds the wolves on autopilot, cleans up, takes a tour around the sanctuary, starts making transport arrangements for the Mexican grey wolves to travel south. That evening, it takes deliberate concentration not to drive to the Shiro’s house.

*

Eventually, Keith runs out of food in the house, to the point where he can no longer rely on the goodwill of Hunk and his compassionate baking. It’s one thing to cope on dry cereal (no milk) and plain rice, and whatever Hunk brings him, but even in his dark mood, Keith refuses to live without coffee. And he can no longer go to his favourite diner for breakfast.

So Keith hauls himself, his giant wolf-dog, and his truck into town to stock up on groceries. The supermarket is about the only place in town where Kosmo can’t go, but the healing crystal store-slash-front for environmental lobbying which Allura runs is just across the street, and Kosmo always makes a popular attraction hanging out in her window display. He shops without thinking much about it, grabbing his usual brand of coffee and creamer, stopping himself halfway down the aisle and returning the fancy flavoured creamer he picked up as well. Because that’s something Shiro drinks, and Shiro won’t be coming to his house for coffee – or anything else – ever again. Something similar happens when Keith finds himself reaching for a tin of peaches to make cobbler with, before realising that there’s no way he’ll actually eat it by himself. He scowls at his basket – he has the essentials – and heads for the till.

He is unduly proud that he manages to act normal and functionally human to the cashier, and then again with Allura as he collects Kosmo from her store. He pauses before crossing the street, glancing at the flyers in the window of the toy shop which has a collection of space themed toys – including a scale model kit of Apollo Eleven – in their window. He looks up just in time to step out of someone’s way, and his heart falls clean out of his chest.

Shiro.

Shiro walking through town with Matt, smiling and gesturing with his hands. Keith knows he’s reminiscing about the cherries, because he’s watched and listened to those exact words so many times. But Shiro doesn’t look at him, not even a blink. And then Kosmo realises who Keith has seen, and Keith only just grabbed his collar in time as Kosmo attempts to launch himself at his second favourite person in the world.

“No. Kos, no.” Keith can’t bring himself to be stern, but Kosmo doesn’t struggle as Keith drops to his knees. “I’m sorry, Kos.” Kosmo whines. “We can’t buddy. We can’t say hi right now. I’m sorry.”

But Shiro has already moved off, stride never breaking as he continues, unaffected. Keith looks up just in time to see Matt half turn and offer him a consolatory half smile-half-grimace. Keith buries his face in his wolf’s fur and cries on the street as the love of his life leaves without ever noticing he was there.

Allura comes out to find him a little while later, and Keith can’t even get himself together well enough to drive home.

That night he sits on Lance and Allura’s couch, a child balanced on each knee, the others hemming him in at the sides, and reads to them from their favourite story books. They giggle and chime in with the repeated sections in Green Eggs and Ham, shriek with imaginary terror when Keith drops his voice low to growl the lines for The Gruffalo, murmur along with little Sarah as she follows Keith’s finger; learning the words and letters for Goodnight Moon. The youngest three all go to bed, herded upstairs by Lance who makes them all super excited about brushing their teeth before singing them to sleep.

Allura takes Amelia and Thomas to read with them one of The Magic Treehouse books, and pour over the map of the world. Talking about the different places and peoples and animals they have been learning about in school: leaving Keith and Lance to make up the couch for Keith and Kosmo to sleep on.

“Thanks, Lance.”

“Of course. You’re always welcome here Keith, even when you are in a bad mood.”

“Lance…”

Lance throws up both hands in supplication.

“Hey, whoa. I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry.”

Keith exhales heavily.

“So, you think maybe you should, y’know, do the thing he told you to do?”

“What?”

“Keith,” the way Lance says his name is a sudden reminder that for all of Lance’s general uselessness, he is in fact, a very good and capable father to five children. “Shiro made you leave his life so that you could go and live yours. Go and explore. Go to Ellesmere Island like you’ve been planning and prepping for, for years. What’s his sacrifice worth if you just wallow in misery forever?”

Keith is silent for a long time.

“I hate it when you say something smart. It ruins your image.”

Lance preens.

“I’ll take that as a ‘you’re right’ along with a veiled threat and leave you to sleep on it. Goodnight Kosmo, take care of him now, won’t you?”

Kosmo whuffs.

*

Either the universe is making up for ruining his life, or it just really wants him gone, because putting everything in place to head north and join up with a research team based in Resolute happens with shocking simplicity. It’s still six-hundred kilometres south of where he wants to be, but it’s a good start. He has his truck fitted out with a long-range fuel tank, beefed up suspension, an on board pump, mega snow grip tyres and a super powerful headlamp for the winter months when the sun never rises. He spends a weekend ripping out the back seat and installing a cot under which he can store both food and his sleeping gear when not in use. The front passenger footwell becomes a mini data recording station, all the computer equipment within triple insulated to protect it from the cold.

And it all goes off without a hitch.

Keith books himself, his wolf-dog, and his truck onto a train headed North, before spending his morning in Ulaz’s enclosure, stroking the wolf’s fine grey fur as he flops on his belly, demanding attention. He returns before lunch to find Pidge’s bright-green jeep parked across from his own, both the Holt siblings peering curiously at his modifications. Kosmo greets them in his usual manner, and doesn’t quite knock Pidge over, but it’s a close thing.

“Oh, get off me you oaf!”

“Don’t call Kosmo an oaf.” Matt admonishes. “Hey Kos! Hi buddy, we missed you!” Matt ruffles Kosmo’s ears and fur and gets a full body wolf cuddle for his trouble. He offers Keith a smile over Kosmo’s thick fluffy head. “Hey Keith.”

“Hi.” Keith takes a breath. He can do better than this. These are his friends, people he has spent half a year with and around on a daily basis. What’s happened isn’t their fault. “It’s good to see you guys. You’ve been missed too.”

“We heard you were making some adjustments.” Pidge jerks her thumb over her shoulder at the truck. “Heading North?”

“Yeah. The litter from the breeding program left yesterday, and I’m on a train with my passport in two weeks time.”

“Dude...” Matt sounds impressed. “That’s big. You’ve been wanting this for a long time.”

Keith shrugs. What he wants is unattainable.

“How’s Shiro?”

“Pretty good, happy whenever we see him.” Matt notices Keith’s frown and smiles apologetically. “He’s living at the Institute now.”

“What?” Keith stares at them, mouth agape.

It is Pidge who shuffles uneasily and offers up an explanation.

“It was about three weeks after we made the new video.” She doesn’t use the phrase break-up and Keith is both grateful and angry in equal measure: it’s not a big enough statement for his erasure from Shiro’s life. “He spent a whole day reading his journal and staring at the stars in the rec room and declared that he didn’t want to be a burden to us all any more. Nothing would sway him: you know how stubborn he is.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“He’s happy Keith.” Matt says softly. “And he’s singing again.”

The three of them stand there silently. Not saying the feelings all have, which are so alike.

I miss him.

He’s our brother.

I love him.

“Mom and Dad send their best wishes for your journey. They say to swing by the diner sometime before you leave, OK?” Pidge jabs Keith in the shoulder in what – he assumes – is supposed to be a friendly gesture. “Stay safe up there in the ice. Don’t get eaten by polar bears.”

Pidge hugs Kosmo, which Keith thinks is about as good as public displays of affection get from her, before climbing into her jeep. Matt shrugs.

“She misses you too.”

“Yeah… Matt? Is he really OK?”

“Seems so.” Matt looks rueful.

“Am I-? Never mind.” Keith exhales sharply. “I’m doing what Shiro wants. That’s what’s important.”

“If you say so. Here.” Matt holds out a small package, wrapped in space themed wrapping paper. “To keep you company on your journey North.”

“Thanks Matt. You’re a good friend.”

Half an hour later having opened the present and loaded the contents of the SD card onto his phone, Keith wants to take back every nice thing he ever said about Matt. What kind of sadistic bastard would give him the entire discography of The Beach Boys? A band which he will forever associate with the love of his life who doesn't even know he exists. He puts his head in his hands as the opening bars of Wouldn’t It Be Nice comes on over the truck speakers.

Shiro holding his hand, Keith’s palm hot where it rests against Shiro’s waist, Shiro’s breath soft against his cheek. His voice, low and sweet, crooning ‘one-two, one-two’ in between the lyrics of the song. Keith having no idea where to put his feet, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s Shiro, and Keith is in love.

Matt must hate him.

Kosmo whines and presses against Keith’s ribs.

“It’s OK Kos. It’s OK. It would be nice but-” Keith feels his mind go perfectly and completely blank for a moment, every muscle slack as a single memory materialises in his prefrontal cortex. “...But he only sings on days he meets me. Matt gave me The Beach Boys knowing that I only think of Shiro… fuck! Kos, we gotta go!”

Keith knows he breaks the speed limit most of the way as he drives to the Institute, but the universe apparently does like him, because there are no cops to pull him over and make him explain his racing heart, his desperate expression, or the music blasting from the speakers of his jacked up truck. He shouldn’t even be driving the snow tyres on asphalt like this. But it’s not important now.

He screeches to a halt in the parking lot, Kosmo quick on his heels as he dashes inside.

“Shiro? Where is Shiro?”

The receptionist looks flummoxed, and Keith shakes his head and dashes up the familiar steps towards Shiro’s doctor’s office. The moment he opens the door he stops, because behind him he hears musical notes he can’t forget.

“Keith-!”

“Where…?” But Keith is already turning, letting go of the office door as the doctor rises from his desk, walking towards the sound of The Beach Boys and ‘little surfer boy’.

Kosmo trots ahead of him, tail wagging high.

Keith doesn’t know what it says on the door, he doesn’t notice the other people there, he doesn’t here what the doctor says behind him.

Shiro is here. Shiro is singing. Shiro is holding a paintbrush in his hand, his fingers splattered with more shades of purple than Keith can name. On the wall behind him are sheets and sheets of completely perfect and accurate star patterns, lovingly and skilfully painted, the constellations labelled in Shiro’s familiar hand. But that is not all.

Blooming in the dark skies behind the stars are countless nebula, spiral armed galaxies and whorls of intergalactic cloud. And all purple. From palest lilac to deepest violet, every shade of purple ever invented.

Keith stares.

“Hey…”

“Hey…” Keith remember how to breathe. “This is going to be a weird question, but do you have any idea who I am?”

The moment of silence is broken by Kosmo skipping across to Shiro – nails clicking on the smooth floor – and rubbing himself bodily against Shiro’s thighs.

“No. Hey there bud, nice to see you too.” he looks back at Keith. “No, not really. But… you’re the boy with the purple eyes.”

“They’re not really purple-” Keith finds himself saying reflexively, then stops. “You remember what I look like?”

Shiro rubs his hand over the back of his neck, forgetting to drop his paintbrush, and gets purple in his hair. He blushes.

“I dream about you. Up there.” The gestures to the painting, and beyond, to the sky. You’re a constant, like the stars. But I can never quite get the shade right.” Shiro places down his painting things, wiping his hand before he steps closer. “You’re not an alien are you? Did I make you up?”

“No. I’m real.”

Keith’s heart beats wildly against his ribs as Shiro smiles softly, then raises his hand and cups Keith’s cheek and jaw in his big palm. Keith can’t help the way he leans into the touch, eyes fluttering closed.

“I’m real,” he repeats softly.

“Yeah… I figured. My imagination is rubbish: I could never invent somebody as beautiful as you.”

“Shiro…” Keith protests with a whine.

Shiro shudders under his touch and blushes softly. Keith does not remember deciding to put his hand on Shiro’s waist, but he has.

“Oh… I do like the sound of that.”

*

~S~

Shiro wakes, and for a moment between the onslaught of consciousness and next chime of his alarm, everything he dreamt blooms behind his eyelids. Billions of stars, and the colour purple, and the smiling face of the prettiest man he’s ever seen, his eyes shining and starstruck. Shiro stretches, flexing his spine, feeling utterly relaxed and comfortable. Then he reaches out for his alarm blindly, and opens his eyes when the chiming stops and is replaced by The Beach Boys.

His phone is propped up on a stand next to his head, and it’s playing a video. The words ‘Good morning Shiro…’ scroll across the screen. Shiro frowns. Clearly, Matt and Pidge are testing a new app or chunk of code, not that Shiro remembers giving his permission to be a test subject. But then, he didn’t give Matt’s rover-bot permission to follow him into the bathrooms at prom, and he still ended up having his make out session with his date for the evening recorded and tweeted. He’s lucky it was only audio. Resigned to whatever cleverness the Holt siblings have prepared he watches.

‘Here’s some things you’ve missed lately…’

Shiro frowns, biting at his lip as the video plays, telling him things that really, he should know. But he doesn’t know, because everything about today is shiny and new. He rubs the scar across his face with his one hand, and pauses.

The thick gold wedding band is new, that’s for sure.

“Coffee’s ready by the stove for you, Shiro.” It’s not text on the screen now, but a man with black hair and brilliant eyes. The man from the dream – the prettiest man in the universe. “Come out and join us when you’re ready. And wrap up warm, it’s cold out.”

Shiro sighs with longing when the video cuts out, because the man was so pretty, but then his phone’s lock screen pops up, and there he is again, smiling wide and proud, wearing a suit with a peony in his buttonhole. That’s Shiro’s hand in the picture, their fingers intertwined with matching gold rings, and the pretty man is kissing Shiro’s knuckles and gazing at him like he’s the entire universe.

Slightly perplexed, Shiro dresses in the clothes left out for him. They are definitely his size, and have had their right sleeves cropped and sewn in the manner he prefers, but Shiro doesn’t ever remembering having such thick knits and silky, thermal base layers before. He misses his henleys. But the ceiling is covered in constellations he painted, there is a vintage style poster on the wall of the Apollo Eleven landing that Shiro remembers excitedly unrolling from its tube when it arrived in the post. He doesn’t recognise the dog bed on the floor or the fabric of the heavy curtains over the window, but he knows he’s safe.

He pulls on thick sheepskin booties and ventures out of the bedroom, following the scent of coffee. Just as he pours a generous helping of creamer from a new bottle into his mug, the far door opens to admit an enormous dog, a gust of chill breeze, and a man with snowflakes in his hair.

“Hey there, baby. Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Shiro feels like he just got hit over the head, because the man brushing snowflakes from his eyes is beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous. And smiling at Shiro like he hung the moon. “Wh-where’s the fridge?”

“I’m Keith.” The pretty man – his husband, Shiro remembers when he sees the ring again – says, holding out his hand. “Just pop it on the windowsill, not much call for the fridge up here. I’ll tell Matt it’s breakfast time. Kosmo, keep Shiro company.”

Shiro stands at the window, staring out at the expanse of white snow which covers the landscape as far as the eye can see, lit only by a streak of crimson sun along the distant horizon. He cranes to look toward the zenith, and finds the stars blazing in the sky above even though it is morning. He feels Keith come up behind him, and reaches out his one hand to show that the approach is welcomed. His husband instantly melds against his side, arms wrapping tightly around his ribs. He looks a little different than he had in the wedding photo, his hair is longer, twisting in a little braid behind one ear.

“Your hair got longer.”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“I do.”

“Morning, love birds.” Matt’s familiar voice makes them both turn, though they don’t actually move away from the window. “Hey Shiro. You know, it’s a good thing I like you both, because nine months freezing out here with only you guys making puppy eyes at each other has nearly killed me. Come on, let’s eat.”

“Where are we?”

“Eureka, Ellesmere Island. Welcome to the top of the world, pretty boy.”

Kosmo and Matt dance around each other. The wolf is angling for Matt’s platter of might-be-bacon and waffles. Keith smiles like he’s in love.

“Keith?”

“Yes, Shiro?”

The hand which grips his is firm and sure and warm, Keith’s eyes shine like the nebula of Shiro’s dreams, and Shiro can hardly believe he is married to someone he can already tell is passionate and funny.

“Do I love you?”

Keith’s smile is soft, incredibly fond, and he cups Shiro’s jaw when he answers.

“Sweetheart, that’s for you to decide. But I love you.”

Shiro follows Keith to the table where breakfast is waiting, and wonders if he’ll be able to get a first kiss from his husband.