First Contact - 1. First Contact

It’s been thirteen days since Keith first kissed him. It’s been twelve days since Matt walked in at the end of his and Keith’s sparring session to find Shiro pinned against the mat with Keith straddling his hips and no space at all between their lips. Twelve days, and they’ve not been alone since.

“Don’t you have some advanced calculus to do?” Shiro asks as Matt falls into step beside him, conspicuously not wearing workout gear. Shiro doesn’t think Matt actually owns any workout gear, and it’s been a very long time since Matt felt the need to spot for him in the gym.

“Yup.” Matt gestures to the PADD and textbook held under one arm. “I can do it in the gym.”

Shiro rolls his eyes and resists the urge to grit his teeth, but stops in the hallway. It’s early on a Sunday morning, and there’s hardly anyone else about.

“Matt...”

“No.” Matt continues walking, and Shiro has to jog ten paces to catch him up.

“Matt! Be serious for a moment, would you? You don’t have to keep fucking shadowing me everywhere.”

Matt shoots him a glare worthy of someone else they both know, who can wither a plant with nothing but a single look.

“I’m not sure I trust you any more, Shiro.”

“For fucks sa- it was just a kiss!” Shiro hisses, then yelps as Matt grabs his bicep – his fingers don’t hardly reach around of course – and yanks him with surprising strength into the thankfully deserted changing rooms.

“No Shiro: you be serious! A kiss, in a public place, between an officer-”

“Junior officer.” Shiro mutters under his breath, knowing that doesn’t make the situation any better.

“-and a cadet. Do I need to go on?”

“There wasn’t anyone around,” Shiro retorts, and he knows it sounds like a poor excuse.

“I was around!” Matt snaps back, with feeling. “There are things I’d rather not know-” his eyes flick quickly down to Shiro’s hands before snapping back up to his face. Shiro remembers how good it felt when he rested his palms low on Keith’s narrow waist. “-but that apparently I have to know. But no one else should ever know them. No one.”

Shiro bites his lip, chagrined. But Matt ploughs on.

“Did it ever occur to you what might have happened if anyone else had chosen to walk in just then? And I’m not talking just Iverson or Montgomery, but anyone? You know they’d have said something and you’d both be up on disciplinary…. Sure, you’d survive that – though your reputation wouldn’t – but do you really want to put him through that?”

The sudden vision of Keith – hair hanging still sweat damp in his face, lips flushed pink and soft from kissing – being forced to explain his actions makes his stomach turn. Shiro’s not even sure that his promises of being there for Keith would be enough to stop him from running, and the horrible truth is that Shiro knows any kind of disciplinary action taken against them would certainly involve his physical separation from Keith. Despite the fact that there’s no one else who can even hold a candle to his flight scores, other than Shiro.

Shiro glares at the floor, as though the locker room linoleum could be blamed for the situation, then checks to see if Matt is still looking at him. His friend’s eyes are harder and more judgemental than he’s ever seen them – worse even than the summer they found Katie in Matt’s room making a weaponized drone loaded with paper bullets constructed from pages torn out of the soft-core top-shelf magazines Matt had been hiding under his mattress. Shiro resists the urge to growl.

“It was just kissing,” he reiterates.

Matt, quite literally, tears his hair out. Shiro snatches up the thousand-dollar PADD before it can drop to the floor.

“That does not make it any better! Shiro!” Matt drags both hands over his face with enough pressure to leave momentarily bloodless lines down his forehead and cheeks. “He’s a kid!”

“You said it was harmless!” Shiro shoots back, voice a low hiss.

“I said the crush was harmless. His crush specifically! I expected you to have more self-control than a damn cadet.”

Shiro begins to shrug out of his hoody, dumping his phone and wallet in his locker as he readies himself for his workout. He’s not even sure why Matt is here, he and Keith aren’t due to work out together this morning.

“And so you’ve decided to follow me wherever I go for the foreseeable future? How’s that going to fix your inability to get a date?”

“Please,” this time Matt sounds like he’s actually begging. “Please, do not call whatever it is you’re doing with Keith, dating.”

Shiro stops in the doorway to the main gym, which is as he predicted, utterly deserted, and turns back to Matt with a curious frown.

“So… you’re not actually trying to stop me from-”

“Do not say it!” Matt’s gone pale. “I am not aiding and abetting you trying to date a teenager – oh god, I said it! - I’m just trying to save both of your careers before you tank your perfect reputation by getting caught.” He follows Shiro over to the free weights bench, drops onto the seat of a rowing machine Shiro knows he has no idea how to use, and flips open his text book. “Any plan which starts with trying to keep the pair of you apart is doomed to fail.”

“Thanks Matt.”

“Don’t thank me. Just stop making puppy eyes at him over breakfast. Please.”

Shiro sticks to his workout routine: it has served him well so far. But after his curls he adds extra crunches to his set, because the idea of Keith’s delicate, sharp fingers running down the ridges of his hard-earned abs has made it hard to sleep at night for a while now. He’s finishing up his reps with the barbell – the weights stacked on either end just fractionally heavier than usual, a fact which made Matt roll his eyes dramatically – when the door from the changing rooms swings wide and the squeak of sneakers has him sitting up and racking the bar within a heartbeat.

“Hey.”

Keith is, objectively, a mess – sweaty, his bare legs stained with red dust, his permanently unstyled hair falling into his face, his t-shirt skewed and damp where he has clearly pulled it up to towel off at some earlier point. All Shiro can think about is that he missed seeing Keith semi-shirtless, and that Keith’s legs are going to be the focus of his personal private time from here on out. Keith smiles at him, it’s a little shy and a little sweet, because Matt’s presence has not gone unnoticed, and Shiro knows his own grin is too broad and bright and he can’t bring himself to care.

“Hey Shiro.”

Matt takes in Keith’s appearance with less enthusiasm.

“Where have you been?” He asks, clearly not really wanting to know the answer.

“I went for a run.”

Matt’s gaze slides over to the wall of running machines facing the long mirror and frowns.

“It’s ninety degrees outside, but sure, of course you went running.” He rolls his eyes so hard Shiro is surprised they don’t end up in the back of skull. “You know other cadets sleep in on the weekends.”

The comment makes Keith rankle instantly. Shiro watches the way the muscles across his shoulders bunch, arms tensing even though his fingers stay loose at his sides, the almost imperceptible tilt of his sneakers as he moves onto the balls of his feet. In every way, he is a dangerous predator, and Shiro thinks Matt is an idiot to goad him.

“Other cadets don’t break flight sim records.” He rolls his shoulders, and suddenly the air of immediate lethality is gone. “There are better things to do than sleep.” The gaze he pins Shiro with is banked with fire. “Do you want to spar when you’re done?”

“I’m done.” Shiro answers, too quickly. Matt makes a choked noise into his textbook.

The first few rounds are practised, familiar, easy. They warm into the fight with holds and feints they both know, touching only for seconds – a palm against a firm chest, fingers splayed over the ball of a shoulder – before breaking away. Shiro sees the change in Keith when he begins in earnest, his fast movements suddenly lightning quick, every joint suddenly springing with extra energy and power. He ducks under Keith’s grapple, watches in fascination as the boy twists out of his own extra-large reach. He chooses not to parry but blocks the next blow with his shoulder, body checking Keith to the mat and following him down. Having Keith underneath him has always been something of a trial-by-fire, but Shiro has spent months subduing his reaction to the very close presence of the boy with the indigo eyes, and allows himself a little grin as he gets his hands around Keith’s forearms, effectively pinning him to the floor.

“Alright there, Spitfire?”

He has just – just – long enough to feel cocky, and then the universe is spinning. Keith has done something with his leg and with some indescribabe burst of power from somewhere, the back of Shiro’s head smacks into the mat hard enough to clack his teeth together.

“Not such a hotshot now, are you?” Keith smirks.

It’s a good thing Shiro already knows he’s damned, because this would do him in completely otherwise. He goes slack under Keith in a breath, and the sudden lack of resistance has Keith’s legs splaying, thighs sliding over his own as his knees sink into the mat. Shiro is suddenly aware of how the action rumples Keith’s shorts, another inch of pale thigh on show, and the iron will he had wrapped around his lust snaps almost audibly.

Of course, Matt chooses that moment to snap his textbook closed – loudly.

“There are things I’d rather not see,” he says, pointedly not looking at Keith, all his ire reserved for Shiro. And Shiro knows why: he’s an adult, a Junior Officer, he’s supposed to be the responsible one. And instead, here he is lying down and letting whatever this is just happen, because it’s Keith. Shiro has no more agency under those brilliant eyes than a butterfly skewered on lepidopterist’s pin.

“No one is making you stay.”

Shiro quirks an eyebrow in surprise: Keith actually talking back to Matt is still a rare occurrence.

Matt rubs the space between his eyebrows with a pained expression.

“It’s called plausible deniability, boys. If you’re never alone in public, how could anything inappropriate be happening?” Shiro does not miss the way his voice drops. He hates that he is, however indirectly, causing Matt additional stress. “Now I suggest that you get off him, go take separate showers, and we’ll all go for breakfast. Just like we do most other days.”

Keith doesn’t grumble, he would never show anyone apart from Shiro how much the admonishment has affected him, but he gets up, offers Shiro a small, tight smile, and heads back through the doors to the changing rooms. Shiro wonders what it would take for Keith to trust Matt like he does him, or if Keith’s faith in Shiro really is a unique thing. Eventually Shiro rolls up his spine and climbs back onto his feet.

“Look. Matt-”

“I swear to god Shiro, wherever you’re taking him better not have cameras. I am not breaking into and deleting the security feed for you.”

“Matt...” Shiro grimaces. “You’re making it sound much worse than it is.”

“It is worse than it is.” Matt shoves his PADD and textbook back under his arm and makes another exasperated gesture with his hands. “I don’t care if it’s just… whatever the heck I just stopped you guys from doing on the mats. He’s a kid.”

Shiro glares at him, knowing all too well the look a comment like that would garner from Keith.

“He’s old enough to sign his life away in defence of his country, but this you think he’s not mature enough for?” Shiro arches a dark eyebrow, and Matt has the good grace to look guilty. “It was one kiss.”

Technically, it was two kisses, but Matt does not need to know any details about what Shiro is referring to in his head as ‘The Best Hour of His Life’ two weeks previously.

“Shiro…. Just, don’t get caught.”

They wander back towards the lockers and the super-fast, super-cold shower Shiro knows he has to take. He wants to kiss Keith again. But he won’t put any pressure on the situation. He couldn’t: Keith trusts him. If Keith doesn’t want to kiss him again, Shiro wouldn’t even think of trying to make him. He finds himself mentally scrolling through location options where he might – if he’s supremely lucky and well-behaved – might be able to give Keith the opportunity to kiss him again.

It comes to him. He grins.

“The ro-”

Matt slaps a hand over his mouth with a death glare.

“Plausible deniability remember? I do not want to know.”

Keith is sitting on the bench next to Shiro’s discarded hoodie, kicking his heels, freshly showered. Shiro knows the smile which spreads across his face is too easily read. Matt groans.

“Please learn to control that. Come on, breakfast big guy.”

*

At some point, someone left a chair up on the roof. it’s been up there so long that the desert sun has cracked the varnish and bleached the wood beneath; but no one who’s snuck up here has ever bothered to take it down. The closest it’s managed, is to be placed next to the door. It’s been there longer than Shiro has been coming up here to stargaze, and for all he knows, he and Keith might be the only ones who do venture out here. Either way, they’ve never seen anyone else on any of their semi-regular astronomy jaunts over the past eight months or so.

Every other time Shiro has joined Keith on the roof, or vice versa, he’s brought a blanket and they’ve stretched out, or sat, shared snacks as they stared up at the sky; talking about the stars, the other solar systems and galaxies beyond their own, theorising what might be out there. Neither of them has said or done anything to indicate that today will be any different, but at the sound of the door, Shiro turns around just in time to watch Keith wedge the chair under the door handle, effectively locking it shut. Shiro swallows dryly.

“Hey Shiro.”

“Hey.” Shiro watches the young man stalk across the rooftop towards him, and wondered if it was natural to like the helpless shiver which crept up his spine, and made his hair stand on end. The mouse didn’t enjoy being pinned by the snake, but Shiro simply sat, leaning back on both hands, hoping to be devoured. “Saturn is supposed to be especially bright tonight. I brought chips.”

“Excellent.”

He was still mostly expecting Keith to take his usual spot on the blanket next to him, and let out a soft noise of pleased surprise when the young man settled across his thighs instead.

“This OK?”

Shiro makes what he hopes is an affirmative grunt, because he’s forgotten how to breathe again. Vaguely, he’s aware that the overwhelming heat of first-lust apparently fades over time; that it is possible to be near someone you like without instantly frying your braincells, but at the moment Shiro doesn’t actually believe he will ever have any other response to Keith reaching out to touch him. Hot fingertips trace his cheekbone, then his jaw, and tilt his face up slightly in a gesture which is already achingly familiar.

“You’re doing a neater job, now.” Keith taps ever so gently at the single scrape on the point of Shiro’s jaw. It hadn’t been enough of a slip up to really break the skin, but it was faintly embarrassing nonetheless. “Your skin is so...” The fact that he doesn’t bother to finish the sentence makes Shiro’s heart race.

“You did it better.”

“I told you, I’m good with knives.”

Shiro wants to tell Keith he’s good at everything, partly because it’s true and there hasn’t yet been a simulation, fight, race, or theoretical class assignment Keith hasn’t been able to overcome with natural skill and fierce effort. Partly he wants to see if Keith will still duck away from the praise, hiding his blush behind his hair. Shiro has only actually caught him blushing once; the faintest pink, almost lilac smear across the bridge of his nose. He wishes he knew what colour to call it, and he certainly has not spent too long looking at Pantone colour charts on the internet trying to work it out. But he doesn’t get the opportunity to say anything, because the pad of Keith’s finger is resting against his lip, exerting the tiniest pressure to open his mouth.

Shiro complies silently, unresisting, helpless to do anything other than whatever Keith wants, willing to give the boy who straddles his lap absolutely everything. He has no idea when being pleased to see Keith happy morphed into the desire to move mountains in order to make him happy, but Keith looks at him like he hung the stars. Shiro is entirely certain that he would go up there and bring one back for Keith if he even hinted that it was something he wanted.

“I want to kiss you again.” Keith speaks like he’s not already ghosting his fingers over Shiro’s lips, the faint touch drawing all of Shiro’s focus, his breath coming shallowly in his chest. Keith’s thumb smears at the corner of his lower lip, and Shiro fights the urge to turn his head and suck the digit into his mouth. He succeeds, but it’s a narrow victory.

“Shiro...”

The petulant note in Keith’s voice distracts him from the thoughts of other parts of Keith’s anatomy he might one day be able to put in his mouth. Shiro blinks up at him, concerned. He’s ready to slide out from under Keith and sit with his arms around his knees at the idea he’s made his protégé uncomfortable, but Keith looks more frustrated than anything.

“You are allowed to kiss me back you know.”

“Oh...”

Keith makes an undignified snort which Shiro knows isn’t supposed to be deemed cute. He deems it anyway.

“You do know how, don’t you Hotshot?” Keith’s smirk makes his pulse jump from a slow, almost painful stammer, into a triple-time thud in an instant. Shiro knows that smirk, it’s the same one Keith wears when he gets to be lead pilot in the simulator, the one which tells everyone he is going to win no matter what.

Shiro glares at him from under brows drawn low.

“Yes. I know how.”

“I was starting to wonder.” Keith’s fingers are back on his lips, littlest finger stroking along the soft underside of his jaw, making him swallow nervously around nothing. Keith pulls at his own lower lip with his teeth for a moment: Shiro cannot tear his eyes away. All the stars and planets in the sky aren’t more beautiful than this boy. “You do know I’ve only the very faintest idea what I’m doing here, right?”

“Oh.”

It’s one thing, in theory, to know that there hasn’t been anyone else before him. Of course, there wouldn’t have been, because Keith is hardly anyone’s definition of a normal teenager, and not the type to be flirting awkwardly with his peers. In practice, the realisation that no one else has ever placed their lips on Keith’s, or put their hands on his waist where Shiro had so enjoyed holding him last time, fries all the higher brain functions which still remained available to him. He’s been waiting, being good, being worthy of Keith’s intense and rare trust. He’s been waiting for Keith to take from him, whatever he wants, but the idea that Keith wants Shiro to guide him along in this – as with so many other things before – had never occurred to him.

Keith leans in, their lips mere millimetres away, then pulls back. It’s a feint like no other, and Shiro chases him, shifting his weight so that his hands are no longer supporting him, leaving them free to settle back on Keith’s waist, sinking lower, long fingers spanning his hips. The flex of Keith’s oblique’s has Shiro’s heart trying to smash its way out of his chest.

“Shiro...” His name in Keith’s voice yanks his attention directly back to the eyes made from cut-outs of the deep evening sky. “Kiss me.”

It’s not a request, and Shiro has always been exceptionally good at following orders.

This isn’t their first kiss, and Shiro thinks he knows what to expect as he tilts his head and presses his lips against Keith’s. Keith’s lips are soft but wind chapped, and very warm. Shiro makes a soft, satisfied noise in the back of his throat as he aligns their mouths more perfectly, and then lets out a surprised, involuntary whine as Keith licks into his mouth, gentle but firm fingers resting on his chin and encouraging him to open up for the boy in his lap. For someone who says he doesn’t know what he’s doing, Keith kisses without hesitation, making up for a lack of experience with enthusiasm. It’s artless and a little rough, and Shiro can’t find a single fibre of his being which complains as Keith nips at his lower lip before dragging his tongue across Shiro’s own once more.

He groans when they break apart, lips still touching, the distance just enough to draw breath, and then he pulls Keith deeper into his lap, changing the angle slightly, and wastes no time in claiming the young man’s mouth with his own. Keith yields happily, a faint thrumming in his chest which Shiro would swear has nothing to do with his heart or voice box as Shiro slides his tongue over the points of his teeth. Keith tastes amazing, like nothing Shiro has a frame of reference for and when Keith smooths a hand up his cheek, palming his jaw, he thinks he’d like to stay right here forever until he’s worked it out.

When they part again, Shiro knows he’s smiling in a frankly dopey manner, and his lips feel bruised. Keith swipes at him with the tip of his tongue, and the tiny motion sends a thrill up Shiro’s spine. Then Keith’s lips are moving against his again, and he slides a hand up into Shiro’s hair and rakes his blunt nails through the short strands.

“Unghh...” Shiro isn’t proud of the noise he makes, but Keith’s lips curve upwards against his skin, and his chest thrums with obvious delight. The firm grip in his hair has his pupils blown wide in moments, and Keith near enough growls.

“That good, Hotshot?”

“Good.” Shiro repeats, feeling less and less smart as the seconds tick past. He doesn’t know quite when he earned a nickname, but it makes his toes curl to hear Keith say it in his too-low gravelly voice.

By some unspoken agreement, Shiro knows just how Keith wants him to kiss back, and they spend some endless amount of time on the simple, almost chaste, press of lips with flickers of tongue, parting for breath but not far enough not to be touching. Keith’s hands linger in his hair, stroking down the nape of his neck and sliding across his shoulders. Shiro keeps his palms on Keith’s hips, neither pulling him in or holding him back, letting Keith dictate the pace of every touch. When he feels the boy shift in his lap – warm and hard and automatically seeking friction – he presses into the soft space beside the jut of his hipbones with his thumbs, and Keith groans.

“Shiro...”

“Keith.”

It’s not a question, just an excuse to say his name, and Keith pulls back far enough to meet his gaze. His eyes are dark now, but still so beautiful, and his lips are red from kissing: it’s a good look on him. Keith’s brain must be running along a similar track – aligned as they so often are – because those firm, delicate fingers reach out to press at the pillow of his lips again. Shiro goes still under him, the silent instruction inherent in the gesture, and he watches Keith as the boy traces the shape of his mouth. No one but Keith could ever look at him with such deep intensity: Shiro feels like he’s being worshipped.

“So pretty.” Keith sounds like he’s talking to himself, his voice soft and full of wonder, as though he can’t believe he’s getting to touch Shiro. “Such a pretty mouth.”

Shiro knows he’s the one who should be feeling lucky, because this is Keith in his lap. Keith, who’s whipcord strong, and fiercely determined, and fights like losing isn’t even a word in his vocabulary. Keith, who flies like he was born for it, handles a hover-bike like it was made for him, and looks effortlessly cool and dangerously elegant with a blade in his hand.

The fingers on his lips press, touching at the smooth, shiny inner skin, where the outside of Shiro suddenly becomes the inside of Shiro. Then Keith’s thumb puts pressure on the hollow of his chin and opens his mouth wider. He’s still staring, and Shiro can feel his pulse flutter nervously in his throat under the scrutiny, suddenly hyper-aware of every movement of his tongue against the back of his teeth. Keith’s fingers drag at his lower lip, distorting the shape of his mouth, and Keith smiles.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“T-thanks.” Shiro manages to shape the word without Keith’s fingers leaving his skin.

Keith’s fingertip pushes into his mouth and runs across the edge of his teeth, Shiro chases it with his tongue, and Keith’s smile broadens.

“All for me, right?”

Shiro is fairly certain his heart is now beating fast enough to power a small town, if only he could hook it up to the grid.

“Keith...” fingers retreat just enough to allow him to speak. “Yes. Spitfire, anything.”

Keith curves his spine and dips down to kiss him again, fingers only slipping away at the last moment, and this time it’s hard and hungry and a little bit filthy with haste as Keith’s tongue thrusts into his already open mouth. Keith pulls him closer by his renewed grip in the back of Shiro’s hair, and Shiro goes all too willingly, crushing their lips together as Keith moulds him to his liking. Teeth catch and nibble on his lower lip – Shiro is fairly certain he whines, but he stopped keeping track of his own noises a while ago – and everything between their mouths is spit-slicked and delicious in a way Shiro can’t describe. The kiss is messy, open mouthed with both of them panting, sharing breath, licking and pressing at each other and never breaking apart.

It feels like it goes on for hours, and Shiro can’t think of anything else he’d rather be doing.

When Keith’s hands leave his hair, he almost whimpers with the lack of touch, and then those same firm fingers are digging into the meat of his pecs; just below his collarbone and dragging inexorably down his chest, scraping along each bump of his abs in a way which makes his breath catch, until they reach the hem of his shirt.

“I wanna look.” Keith’s words are whisper quiet against his lips, but his voice is knife-sharp. “Can I look?”

Shiro nods, his voice is missing and the idea of finding any actual words beyond the invocation of Keith’s name seems impossible. The action brings his forehead to rest against Keith’s, and he spends several long heartbeats gazing into galaxy eyes which simply watch him back, as utterly entranced as he feels.

Keith’s seen him shirtless before: it’s unavoidable, they train and spar and shower at the gym together. Shiro has always forced himself to be neutral when Keith’s been changing clothes, being certain not to look, not to let his gaze linger where it shouldn’t, but not to be so obvious about it as to make Keith uncomfortable. But it’s never been like this. When Keith positioned him during the shave that preceded ‘The Best Hour of His Life’, Shiro had wondered what Keith’s firm but delicate touch would be like on the rest of his body. The fact that he’s about to find out breaks the self-imposed containment he’s been keeping his libido in. He hardens in his jeans embarrassingly fast. Keith is sitting firmly enough in his lap to notice the shift of heat and pressure, and Shiro watches him flush practically purple. At such close quarters, he can feel the warmth on his face.

Keith’s fingers catch on the hem of his shirt, tug gently, and then both hands are taking the edge, pushing – no rolling – the fabric, and Shiro really does forget how to breathe as he watches Keith creep the material of his shirt up his abdomen by creating a tight coil of soft fabric. No one has ever undressed Shiro which such care and detailed slowness. He must be breathing, because he hasn’t blacked out yet and he can see his ribs rising and falling, but it’s very much as though his body is carrying on without direct input from his brain. Which is just as well really, because all his brain can think about is the incredibly soft touches of Keith’s thumbs as he continues rolling Shiro’s shirt up until it’s up in his armpits and his whole chest is on display.

Keith licks his lips. Shiro tells himself it’s an unconscious gesture because Keith’s isn’t trying to be alluring or seductive, but the motion of his tongue followed by shiny wetness shorts his brain and all remaining blood flows directly to his crotch. Shiro wonders just how far past the line of ‘just kissing’ they’ve wandered, but knows better than to promise himself he won’t stray further. He’s lost on Keith, he has been right from the beginning.

Keith’s hands linger on his shoulders – the only part of him still covered by his shirt – and the way his eyes rake across Shiro’s skin has him shivering in the evening air. It’s still warm from the heat of the day, but Keith’s intense gaze gives him goosebumps. Keith pulls his lower lip between his teeth, letting the soft flesh slide slowly out between the white enamel. Shiro is transported back to the library, watching a slightly younger Keith frowning over a vintage flight manual for a stealth fighter jet, chewing on his lip because he didn’t have a pen on hand. As Keith’s fingers walk, unintentionally soft and lazy, up from his shoulders to his face, Shiro’s pulse hammers along to the same beat.

“Pretty….” Keith whispers. He’s a man regarding a beautiful object, unobserved, speaking only for himself. Shiro can’t tear his eyes away from the continued motion of Keith’s teeth, tongue, and lips even as Keith’s fingertips begin to press and trace his mouth once more. “So pretty.”

This time, Shiro definitely whines.

It’s enough to distract Keith, whose dark eyes snap back up to his face, lips curving up into a smirk which can run rings around the most complex simulator programs Professor Holt and the Garrison programmers can devise. Shiro doesn’t stand a chance.

“Shiro.” Keith smudges his lower lip with his thumb. “I like kissing you.”

Shiro can’t help the hot, bright smile which spreads across his face.

“Yeah. Me too.”

Keith cups his face, leans in, kisses him again, all pretence at finesse thrown away. It’s all tongues and teeth and hunger, and Shiro is hit all over again with the knowledge that this is Keith kissing him. That Keith wants to kiss him. The realisation is a heady thing. Shiro supports his weight on one hand, the other wrapping firmly around Keith’s hip and staying there. Keith’s fingers work into his hair again, pulling just so, bringing them flush against each other with only the layers of Keith’s shirt and his open red and white jacket in the way. It’s distance enough, because they’re just kissing.

Just kissing.

Kissing is good.