Do The Plank (the gym is closed) - 1. Do The Plank (the gym is closed)

Keith nearly trips over his roommate as he bangs into the apartment laden with two slightly too full shopping bags from the grocery store. He swears creatively and manages to avoid dropping the next to last loaf of bread in the shop on Shiro's head.

“Dude. What the fuck are you doing down there?”

“Plank.”

“OK. But…. Why in the hallway?” Keith steps over Shiro’s tense, prone form to the little galley kitchen and begins to unpack the shopping. It is not a brilliant selection. “Hardly any fresh veggies, but I got carrots and kiwis. Nuts too, thank fuck.” Keith frowns as he regards his purchases, trying to work out what meals they can actually transform them into. “No bananas, no rice, no eggs, no milk; I had to buy soy instead.”

“I like soy.”

“Fine. You can still drink coffee then. There was fucking none of that either.” Keith sighs, blowing his hair out of his face. “People have gone mad. There’s going to be loads of food wasted in a few weeks time.”

Groceries stashed, Keith takes one of the last two remaining protein and nut bars from the counter and begins to eat it far slower than he usually would. It’s the last one he’ll get for a while; he’d best savour it. Speaking of savouring… Tripping hazard aside, Shiro’s choice of location for his plank exercise gives Keith a perfect view of his back – broad shoulders and tapered, trim waist – without any risk of his roommate looking up and catching him staring. Sure, he’s watched Shiro before, they train together and spot each other all the time, but Keith’s always very careful to keep his gaze exactly where it ought to be. He doesn’t allow himself to linger.

But that’s normally, and there’s nothing about the current global pandemic situation which is even remotely normal. Keith’s just thankful they are still allowed out of the house once a day, to take exercise or go shopping, and his post jog – six laps around the park – sweat only increased other people’s desire to give him a wide berth on his way back through town.

Now he allows himself to watch Shiro as his roommate of two years holds the most perfectly angled, straight lined plank any human has ever managed. His eyes zoom in on the half inch stripe of bare skin where Shiro’s shirt has ridden up. Even in such a tiny gap, the furrow of his spine is somehow obscene, and Keith is pretty certain he can make out dimples where the fabric dips. He readjusts himself in his own shorts as the timer on Shiro’s phone sounds, and the bigger man sinks slowly and gratefully down to the floor.

“So… why the hallway?”

“There’s no space in my room,” Shiro mutters into the hard-wearing carpet.

“Eh?”

Shiro’s room is the slightly larger of the two bedrooms. It’s only fair, because he’s bigger, his bed is bigger too – it has to be to accommodate his six-four, wide shouldered frame – and he did live here before Keith arrived to join him. Shiro flips himself over and suddenly Keith is staring down at his roommate gazing up at him with a bicep curled under his head as a cushion. He looks like a slightly more clothed version of every wet dream Keith has ever had.

Shiro uses his prosthetic hand to drag his ridiculous floof of white hair away from his sweaty brow and grins sheepishly.

“I may or may not be in the middle of hiding from my upper division physics paper.” Suddenly he looks slightly embarrassed, and Keith has a very clear picture of the way Shiro normally works – completely surrounded by piles of paper whilst crouched on his floor. Somehow the guy is still one of the brightest and most organised people Keith has ever met. “And I miss the gym.”

Keith does his very best approximation of a nonchalant shrug. He’s gotten very good at controlling his reactions around Shiro: the first time he saw him shirtless he nearly swallowed his tongue after all. Shiro seems completely unaware of what he is doing to Keith as he cants his hips and twists his shoulders in order to stretch out his obliques.

“Me too.” Keith is very proud of the even pitch of his voice as he replies. “But quarantine won’t last forever. The gym will be back open soon enough.”

*

A week later, quarantine measures are still in place, the selection in the shops is even more abysmal, and they’ve run out of the food Hunk had made for them and stashed in their freezer. The gym is still not open, and it doesn’t look like any of that is about to change. Keith can survive without coffee, he only likes it with large amounts of cream and sugar anyway and those are precious resources now. So he’s turned over the last of their supply to Shiro and taken to waking up with a workout instead.

They don’t have a lot of equipment in their flat, because they both have full gym memberships and both the set up and showers there are really good. Until the pandemic, there had never been a decent reason to get overly sweaty in the apartment. At least, not a reason which didn’t involve Keith’s imagination. But Keith’s imagination never had him finishing up a set of bicep curls and turning round to find Shiro standing in the doorway – having so very clearly just come from a shower – staring at him.

Keith isn’t sure how he avoids dropping the dumbbell on his own foot. Shiro is wearing a towel. And nothing else. Suddenly Keith’s tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“Hi...” Shiro is never a big talker before his morning coffee, but he looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Um- I didn’t think you’d be up yet.”

“I, er...” Keith can’t understand why Shiro is lost for words. On anyone else, he’d say the pink across his cheeks was telling, but Keith knows Shiro doesn’t consider him like that, and he’s learnt to ignore his own wishful thinking. “I was going to get a run in before my office hours start.”

“After a shower?” Keith arches an eyebrow. “Wait, you’re doing live calls with your TA students?”

“Yeah, but only in my room. You don’t have to worry about being quiet.”

“Oh. OK.” Keith sets down the dumbbell with a frown. “You mind if I join you for the run?”

“Keith… you’re always welcome.” Shiro’s voice does that thing which makes Keith’s belly hot and sweet, like he’s swallowed a spoonful of warm honey. Keith nods.

And that’s the thing about his crush on Shiro. It’s not just a crush, because Shiro isn’t just hot. He’s sweet, polite, kind, funny, smart… He’s sharp as a tack, but gets googly eyed over puppies. He can bench press two hundred pounds and doesn’t hide the fact that certain movies make him cry, he gets Keith’s dryly sardonic brand of humour like no one else ever has, but tells the most awful dad jokes Keith’s ever heard; and he’s Keith’s best friend. Keith’s not brave enough to admit to anyone else that his crush has moved very firmly into the territory of complete infatuation, but he knows it’s true.

Ten minutes later they leave the apartment for their run, keeping a very safe social distance from anyone else, but not each other. Keith runs shoulder to shoulder with his friend, because he refuses to be a lech where anyone else can see him, and Shiro’s athletic leggings leave fuck-all to his imagination.

*

“-in the apartment?”

Keith hauls his headphones off his head which has the effect of pumping some very loud and very dark Norwegian black metal out into his room. The one thing he and Shiro absolutely do not share is a taste in music. For Keith, it’s this or ambient sounds he can happily get lost in for hours, but Shiro likes jazz and Keith hears him singing along to the radio sometimes. Keith hasn’t voluntarily listened to radio in years.

“Sorry?”

“What’s the heaviest thing in the apartment?”

Shiro is leaning in his doorway, the ball of one shoulder against the frame, and he’s wearing his gym clothes. Shiro’s gym clothes in winter consist of a series of open sided tank tops and sweatpants. Keith forces his eyes back up to his best friend’s face – it’s a very pretty face so that’s no trouble – and wonders when the last time he had sex was. It was a while ago, and Keith’s happy to blame his rampant libido on his lack of sex life. Because the only thing currently going around his head is the knowledge that if he looks anywhere else, it’s going to be directly at the shape of Shiro’s cock where it lays along the crease of his left hip and thigh. There’s no way Shiro can be aware of the fact his favourite sweats are creating a very obvious dick print, but Keith can’t get his mind to think about anything else at all. He stalls.

“Err….”

“I thought about the couch, but it’s way too unwieldy. And nothing we have in the kitchen is very heavy at all really.”

“Sorry, what?” Keith doesn’t know when he lost the ability to understand language. He didn’t realise that was a thing, but apparently being unable to leave the house or interact with anyone other than his roommate has caused him to unlock hitherto unknown levels of thirst.

“Well, it’s not like the gym is going to be open again for months, and there’s only so much hand weights and the plank can do, y’know?”

Keith knows, he comprehends all of those words, but apparently his brain isn’t firing on all cylinders right now.

“Huh...”

“And we don’t own anything I can bench press with…. I was trying to find something heavy.”

The idea that Shiro even considered trying to lift the couch makes Keith blink extra hard. He is the smartest person Keith has ever met – he TAs an astrophysics class, and is training to become an astronaut for fuck’s sake – but apparently has now also come very close to crushing himself under a sofa during an international pandemic. Keith shakes his head in dismay.

“The heaviest thing in the apartment is you, bro.” Oh god, why did he say ‘bro’? Who says that apart from the cast of terrible movies featuring unrealistic frat-boys? Keith wants to die.

Shiro glances down at his torso, as though judging the merits of trying to lift himself. Keith has seen the man do handstands during his yoga routine, but no one is that flexible. And then he’s tripping over the words in his mouth – even though they come out smooth enough – and wonders why his libido wants to cause a car crash in the middle of his life.

“You can lift me?”

Shiro stares at him. Keith can’t blame him, it’s a weird thing to say, even at the best of times when one of them could have brushed off the strangeness of the situation and gone out to get boba tea or sneaky pastries from the shop around the corner to distract themselves. But they can’t do any of that, because they literally aren’t allowed out of the house and everywhere is shut anyway. Keith wants to bite his fist. He’s an idiot.

“Yeah.” Shiro sounds less than confident, but his smile is big and bright like always. “Yeah. I could totally lift you. You wanna do it in here?”

“Um...” Keith needs to stall for time, because if he stands up now dick print is going to be the least of his worries. He’s been hard as a fucking rock since the moment Shiro showed up looking all… Shiro-y. “Give me ten minutes to finish this and get changed, yeah?”

“Cool. I’ll go move the furniture in the living room. More space.”

“Oh good.” Keith stares at the space where Shiro had been standing, his brain struggling to catch up with the concept. “Space.”

Keith changes for his tightest pair of boxer shorts, which would normally be sexy, but are just being used to pin his traitorous cock tightly against his crotch, a pair of sweats of his own, and a red workout tee from his neglected gym bag. It’s not a great deal different from what Keith has been wearing most days since the lock down started, and it occurs to him that he is going to need to do laundry at some point. The concept is about as comfortable as the idea that he’ll have to wear a button-down shirt again one day.

He arrives in the living room just in time to see Shiro shunt the coffee table against the wall before laying down to check the space. He is greeted by Shiro’s upside down smile. It’s adorable, and Keith feels like he was just punched in the chest. He breathes deep and reminds himself that Shiro smiles at everybody like that. He’s not special and he needs to stop thinking about his best friend and the fact that – oh sweet Jesus – his stupid open sided tank top has draped itself weirdly and he can see the plush swell of Shiro’s pec and one perfect brown nipple. Tight boxers aren’t going to be enough to hide anything now.

“Where do you want me?” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them, and if it was a viable opinion, Keith thinks he would just dissolve on the spot. But Shiro – sweet, completely oblivious Shiro – just beckons him over with another grin.

“Do the plank.”

“Yeah?” Keith has never actually lifted a person in a deliberate manner, and has no idea what’s involved. He put Shiro over his shoulder in a fireman lift once in the park for shits and giggles; it kept him in private fantasy playback material for more than a week.

“There’s a couple of methods, but this’ll probably work best. Just do it about here.” He gestures with his prosthetic to his chest and Keith wonders if he should disappoint his friend and feint a sudden illness in order to avoid doing the plank with his stomach directly across Shiro’s pecs. Oh fuck. “You OK, Keith?”

“Peachy.” Keith takes a deep breath. He can do this. He can totally control his thirst for his friend, his arousal, and his mouth all at the same time whilst Shiro lifts him. Of course he can. He’s a pro at pretending to be fine.

He forces himself to look straight ahead as he kneels down next to Shiro – way too close for any normal situation – and leans forward to place his hands on the other side of the man’s ribcage. Shiro shuffles his arms out from above his head, and just as Keith lowers his hips and tenses himself into a taut, flat line he feels Shiro’s warm palm brush over the bulge in his underwear before his grip tightens right around his inner thigh. It’s about as close as he could hold without grasping directly at his crotch. Keith feels like he might have just swallowed his tongue.

“Good?”

“Aye, aye, Captain...” Keith’s not sure how he gets the words out at all.

Shiro’s other hand braces, thick fingers spread wide, across his sternum, right under his clavicle. Keith tenses and straightens out his limbs as he feels his weight being transferred into Shiro’s hands. He concentrates just on that, on keeping still and centering himself, as Shiro starts his reps. He counts under his breath, and on each dip Keith can feel the little hot puffs of Shiro’s breath against his skin where his shirt has ridden up already. When he reaches number eight, Keith allows himself the risk of looking down.

He was prepared for Shiro to look bored, disinterested, or most likely as though he was concentrating on not dropping his friend on himself; because no matter how still and sturdy Keith is, it’s very different from lifting a barbell. He’s not expecting to meet Shiro’s silver-grey eyes and for Shiro to beam at him. He holds his gaze, and the next rep is punctuated with an unmistakable and completely unnecessary squeeze of his inner thigh.

Keith wants to say something, to ask what the heck is going on, but apparently, he’s forgotten the entirety of the English language and so he just stares. Shiro finishes ten reps, squeezes again, and puts him back down on finger- and tip-toes to take a breather. He does not move his hands.

“You good for me to do another set?”

“Yup.” Why the fuck does he sound so chipper? He shouldn’t sound chipper. He should be asking Shiro why the heck he is still rhythmically squeezing his thigh whilst grinning like that.

“Thanks for doing this for me. I don’t wanna feel like I’m slacking just ‘cause the gym is closed.” Shiro lifts him again, and Keith feels a dull ache in his core from being tense. He brushes it aside.

“This thing could last for weeks and weeks yet. You’ve plenty of time to get back in shape to show off for someone after social distancing ends.” To his surprise, Shiro stills with his arms extended, Keith fully off the floor. Keith frowns. “Shiro? Dude, your arms lock up or something?” Shiro doesn’t reply, and Keith can feel his pulse starting to hammer faster under his ribs; Shiro must be able to feel it against his hand. “Shiro?”

“And what if I wanted to show off for you?”

Whatever Keith was expecting him to say, it’s not that. He jerks back in shock, which doesn’t really work because Shiro is holding him suspended in the air. The sudden movement has him spinning out of his friend’s hold and landing none too softly, over his abdomen and crotch. Two things become inherently obvious: Shiro’s abs are just as beautiful and defined as they look, and Keith is not the only one exercising with a boner.

“Shiro?” Keith’s voice is muffled, because he is very carefully not moving and speaking into his own knuckles. He can feel Shiro against his stomach, and for some reason the words ‘dick print’ are going round and round in his head again.

“Keith?” Shiro sounds incredibly at ease, considering their current position. “You OK down there?”

“I think I just hallucinated you telling me-”

“-that I wanna show off for you? Nope, that happened.”

Keith makes a noise like a dying animal. How is this his life?

“Hey Keith...” Shiro shifts underneath him, half sitting up – which ends up pouring Keith further into his lap – his voice going soft and concerned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said- I mean, this is a really awkward situation anyway and-”

“Shiro.” Keith doesn’t move from his position, fairly certain that if he does, the embarrassment will kill him. “Shut up.”

“Oh… OK.”

There is a long moment of stillness, in which Keith memorises every ridge of Shiro’s abs. The shape of his dick through his sweats is going to haunt him – probably forever.

“Hey Shiro?” Keith is proud of how even his voice comes out. “You planning on finishing your set, or what?”

“Huh?”

Keith allows himself the smallest of sidelong glances, just enough to make out Shiro’s jaw and the smooth steel plating of his prosthetic wrist.

“Thought you were showing off? Or can’t you handle it?”

This time it’s Shiro who makes a noise like he’s swallowed his tongue. He recovers quickly, voice going low and dark.

“Is that a challenge, Spitfire?”

“It is if it’s working- nghhkt!” Keith is not proud of the startled, half-swallowed yelp he makes when Shiro grabs him with both hands and hoists him into the air before he’s ready.

The hold is un-perfect and Keith is slow to tense into the proper position, but Shiro is grinning at him. Keith’s told himself dozens of times that Shiro is nice to everyone, easy with his smiles and generous with his affection, but that smirk gives him reason to doubt. Shiro has never given any of their friends the look he’s giving Keith now. It makes something hot tighten in Keith’s centre, and he brings himself into a perfectly taut line. Shiro’s surprise is palpable.

“You alright up there, Spitfire?”

“You bet Captain. Finish your damn reps.” Keith returns his smirk. “Then we can do legs.”

“And what about your workout?” Shiro taunts, as though he doesn’t know damn well that holding the plank for as long as Keith already has isn’t effort enough.

Keith lets his gaze drift to Shiro’s still-exposed nipple, then drags his eyes in an obvious manner to the other man’s crotch. Shiro flushes a very attractive shade of pink all the way down his neck and into the collar his tank top.

“Oh, I’ll get mine in after.”

Keith is fully aware that nothing more than Shiro’s supreme dedication to completing his workout without accidentally injuring either of them, and his aversion to wasting the effort by not completing each movement properly, are the only things stopping Shiro from closing the distance between them then and there. Keith’s only holding himself back by the narrow band of self-control he labels as his desire to win, and somehow that means not being the one who snaps first.

They finish the chest presses, then Keith planks himself once more with his hands clasped in Shiro’s own, fingers interlaced, trying not to picture all the things the position inspires as Shiro pushes him up and away from himself with Keith’s toes acting as a pivot point. Shiro uses him as resistance for a double set of leg presses, and when he lays back to start his sit ups Keith wastes no time in crawling over his lap. He settles his weight against Shiro’s thick thighs and grins as Shiro rises to meet him, left elbow coming forward as he twists through his core. He can see Shiro counting under his breath, lips damp and parted as his pale fringe falls into his eyes. Keith is very tempted to press his fingertips into his mouth, but he also promised himself he wouldn’t break first. Instead, he shifts his weight, ever so slightly against the unmistakable hardness beneath him, and watches as Shiro’s pupils blow.

“You know,” he aims his tone for casual, and misses. He’s goading his best friend openly now. “This position does give me ideas.”

“Is that so?” Shiro’s voice is iron-steady; the man has greater self-control than anyone else alive. “I thought you were going to workout first?”

Waiting be damned, Keith has waited long enough. He runs his palm down the ridges of Shiro’s abs in an unequivocally wanting gesture.

“Didn’t say we had to be dressed for my workout, Captain- ack!” For the second time that afternoon, Keith makes an involuntary noise of shock and distress as his world spins. His spine is suddenly pressed into the floor, Shiro’s superior weight bearing down on him, his legs pinned up, caged by the other man’s arms. Shiro rocks his hips firmly against his ass.

“What are you trying to make me do to you Keith?”

Just the words make Keith’s toes curl.

“Oh fuck...”

“Is that what we’re doing here?” Shiro arches a dark eyebrow.

“I fucking hope so...” Keith ends the phrase with a frown, because under Shiro’s smile, the bright joy is fading from his eyes. “Shiro?” He wriggles in Shiro’s hold, freeing one arm, palm cupping Shiro’s jaw. it’s probably the most intimate touch they’ve shared whilst sober, because falling over and onto each other when drunk doesn’t count. That was something Keith had to convince himself of to stay sane, a while back. “Shiro? What’s wrong?”

“I’ve wanted… fuck, I’ve wanted this for ages you know.” He didn’t know that, but he does know how unusual it is for Shiro to swear. Keith gulps audibly.

“How long?” He asks, wondering if they could have been doing this all along. At least one of them is clearly oblivious and Keith has the suspicion it might be him.

“How long have I wanted to have sex with you, or how long have I been in love with you?” Shiro replies with a straight face.

It takes Keith a dozen long heartbeats for his brain to process what he’s just heard. He wants to roll away and close his eyes and just let the weight of those words sink into him, because never in any of his softest dreams had he ever allowed himself to actually think he would hear that sentiment fall on him from Shiro’s perfect lips. Shiro loves him. Loves him. Him, Keith, who is either perpetually silent or unnervingly brash with honesty, who has no skill with small talk or social niceties, and whose only verbal filter is the one which has – apparently needlessly – stopped him from telling Shiro how incredibly fucking hot he is on multiple occasions.

“Jesus… Shiro, you can’t just say things like that to a guy.”

Shiro rocks back onto his heels, giving Keith room to flex, breathe, get up and run away if need be. But it’s not like either of them can go anywhere, and Keith doesn’t want to walk away from this conversation. He lets his thighs fall open around Shiro’s hips and bites back an ecstatic whimper as Shiro’s warm palm lands on his waist, long fingers spanning to where his shirt has ridden up to expose his ribs. The gesture keeps him in Shiro’s lap.

“I’m not saying them to ‘a guy’, I’m saying them to you.”

“Fine.” No one is more stubborn than Keith, not even Shiro. “How long then? Both.”

Shiro ticks the two answers off on his black prosthetic fingers.

“So, the very first time I saw you. And then that time we ended up being the only two left in the bar and sat talking all night.”

Keith gapes at him.

“Shiro! Those were the first two times we ever met.”

That night they spent talking is seared into Keith’s memory as one of the greatest conversations he’s ever had. They talked about everything, and Keith knew he had never opened up so easily to another person, not even to his family. Something about Shiro had drawn him in. Keith had started calling him ‘Captain’ for his childhood love of Star Trek. Shiro had nearly spat his drink out when Keith had handed him one of his headphones so they could annoy each other with their music selections, when The Prodigy had blared out loud enough to make his ears bleed. At some point between those two events, Keith had become comfortable around Shiro. When the offer had come two months later to be roommates, it had felt as natural as breathing.

“Yeah...” Shiro blushes again, eyes dancing away, looking almost guilty about his answer. “Well...”

Keith doesn’t feel the slightest bit guilty as he surges up, grabs the front of Shiro’s stupidly revealing shirt in his fist, and hauls him close enough that their noses brush. He makes sure Shiro sees the way he looks at his mouth while he talks, because all Keith can think about right now is how good his lips are going to feel.

“You know I’ve liked you from the beginning too, right?”

Shiro manages to roll his eyes.

“Well yeah, but not like that-”

Keith cuts him off with a kiss which is mostly teeth and tongue. Shiro is warm and fantastic tasting against him, all sharp with citrus and the tang of salt- sweat from their workout. Keith groans as they break for air.

“Yes like that.” He explains, even though it must be totally obvious. “This isn’t just some cabin-fever lack-of-options thing here. You’re the greatest person I’ve ever met Shiro. Exactly how many smart, kind, understanding, funny, hot-as-fuck best friends do you think I have? I mean, unless you count Pidge and Hunk, I basically don’t even have any friends- WHOA!” Keith’s on his back again, Shiro crushing him into the carpet, eyes lit up with a smile nine-parts sweet and one-part hungry predator. It’s a good look. “Feel better now, Captain?”

“Oh, yeah.” Shiro punctuates his words by grinding himself firmly against Keith once more. “Now what was that you were saying about a lack of clothes?”

They make it into Shiro’s room by wordless agreement groaned between kisses, because whilst the floor is fine, there is no lube anywhere within reach. Keith figures if they’re going to have to get up anyway then they may as well make the effort of twenty paces to reach an actual bed. Shiro’s room is clean of paperwork this time and Keith turns to him to say as much, but his words are swallowed up by Shiro falling on his mouth. The back of his knees hit the bed as his best friend drives them both onto the mattress. Being pinned under Shiro is a fucking revelation and Keith doesn’t know how he’s lived so long without the feeling of Shiro’s massive body caging him in. He never wants to be anywhere else, but-

“Didn’t I promise you a workout?” He asks, his voice laden with snark.

“Next time.” Shiro’s fingers slide under his neck, caressing softly before tightening in his hair. He seizes Keith’s sweats and boxers in the other hand and yanks them down with a single movement. “You know how hard it is not to think of you naked when you’re holding the plank like it’s no effort at all?”

“Says the guy who – nnnnghhh – lounges around with his dick making an outline in his sweats.”

“I knew you’d noticed that.”

“I swear the fucking thing is as long as my forearm, how could I not notice?” Keith grunts, exasperated at the way Shiro is holding his lips just out of reach. He whines.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Spitfire.”

“Don’t need to be anywhere else.” Keith quips. Apparently getting the last word in is important.

Shiro is on him in a flash, the hand gripping the back of his hair pulls deliciously, angling his jaw and exposing his throat as Shiro delves into his mouth eagerly. There’s no space left to groan, and Keith kisses him back just as hard, rolling his hips up into Shiro’s. He is briefly distracted by what it might feel like to try and get the impressive length of Shiro’s cock down his throat. He’ll need practice, but that doesn’t faze him in the slightest. Then Shiro wraps the slightly textured, almost cool to the touch, polycarbonate fingers of his prosthetic around his hard on, and Keith makes a needy noise which Shiro swallows happily. Shiro bites his lower lip as he draws back – hard, but not enough to break the skin – and Keith knows that even from the government mandated two-metre distance, other people will be able to see that his mouth is kiss swollen and red. The knowledge is more arousing than it ought to be.

Shiro nips and kisses his way down Keith’s neck, and the smaller man just turns his head and gives himself over to his best friend’s attentions. Shiro makes a deep, pleased noise, sinking his teeth in just south of Keith’s collarbone, sucking hard enough to pull up a bright hickey. Keith almost wants to be annoyed about it, but he can’t bring himself to be as Shiro wraps both hands around his narrow hips, thumps onto his knees, and places a kiss as low on Keith’s abdomen as possible. It’s the smallest of warnings, and Keith opens his mouth to – what, protest? He wants to worship the body he’s spent the last two years lusting over from a distance, but Shiro clearly has other plans.

Keith has spent a lot of time thinking about Shiro’s mouth, and though talk of their sex lives – past or present – has been noticeably absent from their friendship, Keith never actually expected to be on the receiving end of the best blow job he’s ever had. Shiro does something indescribable with his tongue that has Keith fisting his fingers into the sheets and clutching at the buzzed fade of Shiro’s hair simultaneously, and Shiro growls. Keith’s had good blow jobs before, he’s sure he has, but nothing compares to this. This is some kind of revelation in the form of lips and tongue and Keith keens out something wordless between clenched teeth as he feels himself approaching the edge of his orgasm far too fast to actually manage a warning.

“C-Captain!” A half stuttered nickname will have to do, because Keith arches his back off the bed, only pinned in place by Shiro’s hands on his hips and mouth around his cock as his orgasm tears across every nerve ending like a brand.

His vision comes back in time with his racing pulse, and Keith clears the fog of ecstasy in time to see Shiro leaning up, tongue sweeping across his lower lip, grinning like he’s the luckiest man alive. Keith jams his knuckles against his teeth, but it’s not enough to fully stifle the apology that begins to pour from him.

“Oh shit. Shiro, I’m sorry. I can-”

Shiro cuts him off by placing an open-mouthed kiss on the head of his cock, and Keith jolts with oversensitive aftershocks.

“Spirfire, this is one of those times when you should practice that strong silent thing everyone else always says you have going for you.” Shiro’s lips move against him as he speaks, and it’s very hard to concentrate on anything else. “That was hot.”

“Shiro...” Keith whines. He can’t deal with Shiro looking at him like that and touching him as well.

“Don’t worry Spitfire. We can work on your stamina.”

Keith gapes at him.

“You bastard.”

“Brat.” Shiro retorts.

“Yours.” Keith doesn’t know how much hope shows in his voice.

“Yeah?” Shiro’s soft expression melts into something darker as his hands smooth down Keith’s thighs, fully divesting him of his clothes. His smile becomes a lazy, self-assured smirk. “Yeah…”

Keith doesn’t say anything as Shiro pulls him into a sitting position in order to yank his shirt off over his head. He just sits, slack mouthed, as Shiro stands, his eyes focusing on the girth of Shiro’s thighs and the way the thin material of his sweats clings and drapes. Only when Shiro drops his stupidly revealing tank top onto the floor does Keith snap back from near-drooling at the bulge of Shiro’s obvious dick-print.

“Something on your mind, Spitfire?” Shiro arches an eyebrow.

“Cocky, aren’t you?” Keith snaps back.

Shiro doesn’t bother with a verbal response, but rolls his abs, hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his sweats, and jerks the front down. His cock is revealed by inches, tan and thick, curving out toward Keith with the head still pinned by Shiro’s clothes. Keith fights the urge to drool. Then Shiro’s sweats drop out of sight and the release of pressure causes his ruddy erection to snap up and smack his abs. The fucking thing practically reaches his navel before tilting down towards him, unable to support it’s own weight at such an angle. Keith’s eyes go wide.

“Yes.” Shiro says with a broad, powerful grin.

Keith has no idea what he’s talking about, and he doesn’t much care.

“Ready to go again, Spitfire?”

And Keith is. He’s so ready. It’s hard to tear his eyes away from Shiro’s hard cock to look at the rest of him, but he’s glad he does. Shiro naked is a sight to behold; every inch plush and ripped in the absolute best way imaginable. The way he’s looking at Keith makes Keith’s stomach do a little flip. If Shiro seemed at all unsure before – before Keith made it clear how gone on Shiro he already is – now he oozes confidence like only someone built like that possibly can. Keith’s just about to close the too-large distance between his lips and Shiro’s cock, when Shiro presses a half-empty bottle of lube into his hand. Keith is startled to find they both like the same brand.

“But I was gonna...” Keith feels bereft, denied the chance to taste the most beautiful cock he’s ever seen.

“Next time.” Shiro’s smile goes gentle, his thumb strokes Keith’s jaw. Keith fights the urge to follow the digit with his lips, and wins narrowly. “Baby… next time.”

Once upon a time ago, Keith had a boyfriend who tried to call him baby. Keith sneered, and stopped indulging in public displays of affection after that. Other couples with cutesy nicknames usually make him roll his eyes and shake his head. But when Shiro says it, Keith shudders all over, his cheeks heating. He can be Baby for Shiro. He can be anything for Shiro.

“Slick me up?”

Keith nods, mute. The snap of the cap is loud, the squelch of the lube between his fingers suddenly intimate in a way it’s never been before. Shiro makes a pleased, proud noise in his chest when Keith finally wraps a hand around his length. Shiro is big and weighty, hot and velvet-smooth over hard muscle. Keith draws breath loudly as he strokes Shiro’s cock, mixing the lube in his palm with precum from the crown. The temptation to taste is unbearable.

Shiro pulls back, out of Keith’s grasp, and takes the bottle from him in the same motion.

“Do the plank for me again.”

Keith stares at him before his remaining braincells scrape themselves up off the floor and hit each other hard enough to instruct his muscles to lie down and roll over. He braces his forearms, exhales, and pulls himself up into the familiar, tense pose he’s been holding for much of the past hour. But now, he can feel Shiro’s eyes on him, bringing a heat quite different from that in his over-used muscles.

“Do you want to prep, or shall I do it?” Shiro, ever the gentleman.

“You think I can plank with one hand whilst balancing on a fucking bed?” Keith snarks back. It feels good to regain some sense of normalcy.

The mattress dips beside him as Shiro kneels, thighs brushing, and Keith shivers as Shiro places a kiss, warm and open, between his shoulder blades.

“God, you’re so pretty...”

Keith bites back a whine – he thought Shiro was going to append that with a certain new pet name – but not fast enough. Shiro speaks against his skin as he starts making slick, wet noises with the lube between his prosthetic fingers.

“Something you want, Spitfire?” He nips at Keith’s skin and growls low, obviously pleased with the results. Between bites and kisses he asks again. “Or did you like it when I called you something else? Hmmm? Are you secretly soft under that ‘devil-may-care’ attitude and the ‘I-can-kill-you-in-creative-ways’ glare?”

Shiro licks over his ribs, following the curve of bone with his tongue, then bites hard enough to pull up a bruise and leave deep indents with his canines. Keith hangs his head, bangs spilling on the mattress, and grits his teeth against the whimper which threatens to escape him. It has little to do with pain.

“I think you are. You might be all muscle-” a hand dips into the furrow of his spine, and then slicked up fingers are brushing, teasingly light, across his entrance “-but you’re sweet for me, aren’t you Baby?” Keith chokes on nothing, more turned on than he’s ever been before. Shiro presses the tip of one thick finger against him, twists his wrist and sinks down to the knuckle. Their groans can only be told apart by pitch. “Oh look at you, Baby Boy...”

This time, Keith can’t hide his wanton gasp of pleasure at all, and above him, Shiro goes still for a moment before he starts working his finger in and out of Keith’s wet hole.

“You like that, don’t you Baby? You want to be good for me, huh? So good. So tight...” Shiro sounds far more breathless than at any point during his workout. “Fuck… ungh. Keith- I want you so bad.”

Keith gathers his wits together to make a bratty retort, but Shiro presses deliberately on his prostate hard enough for him to see stars, and all he manages instead is a gasped whine.

“Ohhh, Baby…”

“Please.” Keith can barely string two words together, and any other time he’d hate how awfully needy and desperate he sounds, but none of that matters, because it’s Shiro. “Please Shiro...”

“Yeah? Yeah… Stay right there.” Shiro punctuates his words with another slick, wet twist and thrust of his fingers. “So pretty Baby...”

Shiro withdraws his finger, palm cupping and smoothing over Keith’s ass before lifting away. Keith just has time to mourn the loss before Shiro is adjusting his position, easing his thighs apart, taking the time to spread his cheeks and tease lovingly across his hole. He draws Keith’s legs up, settling him properly onto his knees, and Keith sighs with the sudden lack of tension from his core, his spine bowing. Behind him, meaty thighs wedge up between his own, and Keith hears Shiro chuckle warmly. Then a big hand is pressing into the furrow of his spine once more, encouraging his chin and chest down to the bed. Keith goes, willingly, more exposed than he’s ever been in front of another living person. He practically purrs as Shiro pushes two fingers back into his hole once more. His hips rock back automatically, wanting friction and fullness, but a firm, enormous hand stops the motion, and Keith resists the urge to squirm with the way he feels Shiro’s eyes on him.

“Baby Boy...”

“Shiro- please...”

“Look at your tight little hole, your perfect sculpted ass.” Shiro’s voice sounds darker and more ravaged than he’s ever heard it before. “You’re going to kill me with this you know.”

Keith grunts and gasps as Shiro nails his prostate with deliberate force.

“What was that, Baby?”

Keith yowls silently, the muscles of his jaw stretching in sympathy with his rim.

“I said- unnngh… that you are free to die after we fuck, not before. FuckShiroohohohohstars...” Keith babbles incoherently as Shiro works his fingers hard and tight into oversensitive nerve endings. “Fuck!”

“All our friends are wrong,” Shiro growls in his ear, sounding pleased. “You’re so not the strong and silent type.”

Whatever he does with his fingers has Keith whining between clenched teeth. Then his fingers vanish and Shiro cups a lube-slicked palm over the head of Keith’s quivering dick. He bucks – into or away from the contact is up for debate – and Shiro clamps a big hand around his hip, taps the head of his cock against Keith’s hole, and sinks down into him in one long push. Keith sees stars, forgets to breathe, forgets how to breathe, forgets his own name as Shiro’s pelvis fits flush against his upturned ass.

“Holy…” Shiro sounds as overwhelmed as Keith feels. “So tight… nnnngh Keith- so perfect.”

Keith can’t possibly find the spare energy to agree, because having all of Shiro inside him is more than his brain can process. He swears he can feel Shiro’s cock nudging into his ribcage, and just the imagined thought of how he might look right now is enough to have him literally biting the pillow to stifle the sounds coming from his throat.

Shiro pets along the furrow of his spine, smoothing over his tense muscles and murmuring wordlessly, soothing and reassuring, until Keith can once more lift his head.

“Ready, Spitfire?”

Keith rocks his hips back with more confidence than he honestly feels, but the pain is good – like the burn after a really tough workout – and it builds hot alongside the pleasure. Shiro draws almost all the way out of him before fucking back in with a snap of his hips. Keith chokes on an unformed reply, head dropping back down to the pillows, because holding it up is an impossible feat when his only thought is about how hard Shiro is and how full he feels.

“Baby?” Shiro cards long fingers through his hair, rubbing little circles on the vulnerable bump at his nape, making him groan. “You still with me? You OK?”

Keith nods weakly, then closes his eyes to have one less thing to concentrate on.

“Yes. Please... Shiro.”

It’s all he can manage, but it’s enough, and Shiro kisses his shoulder, and hugs him tight for a moment. Then those broad hands are wrapped once more around his hips and Keith finally understands what people mean when they talk about being railed into the mattress. Shiro’s first thrust makes his hips feel loose in their sockets, and the second pushes him deep into the bed, Shiro’s prosthetic hand slamming into the headboard above him as he leans over and cages Keith in with his larger frame.

Keith wails and moans and half stifles himself with the pillow as each and every thrust hammers his prostate, and grinds his oversensitive erection into the bedsheets. Top or bottom, Keith’s always been an active partner during sex, but there’s nothing he can do right now other than brace himself and take it, because Shiro fucks him with all the force of a falling meteor. It feels inevitable – like gravity, like the spinning of the cosmos – that Keith can’t keep hold of the pleasure building within as Shiro pounds into him. He fists the sheets in one hand, the fingers of the other catching Shiro’s natural wrist, squeezing tightly as he splatters his second orgasm into Shiro’s expensively smooth bedsheets.

“Baby- Keith- unnghh...” The endearments are breathless, but despite the continued rock of his hips, Shiro manages to wriggle his prosthetic arm between Keith’s chest and the bed, pulling him up the few inches between them until Keith can feel Shiro’s heartbeat through his back. “All for you Spitfire. You’re so good.”

Keith thinks he might actually be crying, not that he can think right now, but he clutches at Shiro’s arm wrapped around his torso, vacantly wondrous about the fact the man can somehow carry his weight, support them both off the mattress, and fuck him like there’s no tomorrow all at the same time. The pleasure still sparking through him from his dick to everywhere they touch keeps him whimpering with every fought-for breath. Then Shiro is panting, breath hot and moist against his ear, gasping his name like a prayer as his hips jack one, twice, a third time into Keith so hard he knows he’s going to have bruises from that impact alone, and he can practically feel the wet spill of Shiro’s orgasm inside him.

Somehow, Shiro doesn’t just simply collapse on top of him, but has the sense of mind to bring Keith with him, still secure in his arm, as he settles himself onto his side, spooning around him, warm and reassuring.

Keith stares at the rumpled bedsheets, blinking slowly as his vision comes back into focus. Shiro is stroking his hair, soft and without ulterior purpose. When he feels Keith shift in his arms, his presses a small, pleased kiss to the top of his head. Keith can’t let himself dwell on the fact that, if either of them had been smarter and less oblivious, they could have been doing this from the beginning, because already the gesture seems so familiar and easy. Keith finds his fingers lacing with Shiro’s own over his chest, and it’s then he feels Shiro pressing an echo of his own heartbeat into Keith’s skin with the pad of one finger. That too, feels right. It’s like they have been doing this for years. Shiro shifts his hips, his softened dick slipping from him, and they both make the exact same noise of displeasure at the sensation.

Just as Keith think he might finally have gathered up enough wits and oxygen to speak, Shiro beats him to it.

“So… good workout, Spitfire?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Keith replies without force. He has no force left.

“Brat.”

“Yours.” The familiarity of the exchange makes Keith instantly buoyant. “I’m in love with you, you know.”

“Baby...” Even exhausted, the name does something to Keith, making him go pliant and boneless in Shiro’s arms. “I love you.”

Keith turns his face and presses a smile into the crook of Shiro’s elbow.

“Next time, I’m gonna lift you.”

“Is that right, Spitfire?” Shiro sounds exactly the right amount of smug for someone who looks that good and fucks that well. Keith can’t wait to prove it to him.

“Aye, aye, Captain.”