How Do You Like Your Eggs? (Two Fists in The Parking Lot) - 1. How Do You Like Your Eggs? (Two Fists in The Parking Lot)

~ S ~

“Why the heck would you want to go to Waffle House again?” Adam hisses, clearly annoyed and also clearly not wanting to make a scene – even in their own car – as Shiro flips the indicator and pulls into a space in the less-than-full parking lot.

“I like breakfast food.”

“Baby…” Shiro’s not sure what it is, but lately every time his boyfriend has called him baby it’s like a tiny needle being dug under his skin and he hates it. “Why don’t we go to Wendy’s instead? They do breakfast food there and you love their French toast.”

“We’re already here,” Shiro points out, switching off the engine and pocketing the keys. “And I want eggs.”

“Not the eggs again… Takashi-!” Adam hisses after him, suddenly realising Shiro has already left the car.

For a moment Shiro stands in the parking lot by himself, gazing up at the slightly overcast sky, reveling in being alone. He stretches, both arms up over his head, locking the fingers of his high tech black and silver prosthetic with those of his natural hand, loving the way the nano sensors give him feedback from the motion. He has the same aching tightness through his prosthetic triceps as he does in the natural one. When Adam crosses around the front of the car – book in hand because he’s not a big eater and almost never consumes lunch – Shiro does not miss the furrowed frown his boyfriend gives him for daring to wear a short-sleeved t-shirt. But if Adam didn’t want to get into a fight in the car about going to Waffle House, he’s certainly not going to kick off in actual public about Shiro’s lack of desire to cover up the fact that he only has one arm. And Shiro’s glad. He’s sick of having that conversation.

After the freak hoverbike accident which cost Shiro his flawless skin and his right arm – who rides their bike off a cliff and into the centre of an outdoor jiu jitsu tournament anyway? – Shiro was happy to be alive. And excited by the idea of a prosthesis he wouldn’t have to take off and could actually work with him just like the missing arm had. He was keen to get back to life as usual, or nearly usual. But Adam had other ideas, and now Shiro’s many jiu jitsu belts and gi lie neatly folded and pressed in the back of his wardrobe. Every time Adam goes in there to grab something, he makes a comment about how they are taking up valuable room, and Shiro grinds his teeth.

Adam also doesn’t understand why Shiro has repeatedly refused the pale-flesh tone exoskin, which can be used to make his prosthetic visually match his other arm. And Shiro is sick of explaining it to him, but he had seen the looks Adam’s parents gave him last time they visited for dinner, and Shiro knew that his boyfriend had been venting to them about it. The sight of his prosthetic doesn’t cause him any pain, and Shiro does not understand why it seems to bother Adam as much as it does.

But he knows exactly why Adam doesn’t want them to go to Waffle House – especially this Waffle House – again, and it’s the exact same reason that Shiro wants to go and order eggs. Because the cook at this Waffle House keeps getting his eggs wrong, and Shiro knows it’s got to be deliberate.

The first time he’d been legitimately pissed off, to have his fried eggs served fully hard and not gooey and slightly soft like he wanted them, like he’d ordered them. And then for the cook to snipe back at him across the service hatch when he’d complained… Shiro had gritted his teeth and demanded new eggs. Which was unlike him, he normally let’s stuff like this go. But Adam had been in a mood about not being able to find matching place mats or some such fucking thing. He’d harped on all the way to the mall about how nice it was for them to spend their weekends together properly now that Shiro wasn’t ‘wasting his time’ with training and competitions any more. Shiro hadn’t wanted to hit something so badly since his accident. And then the cook had come back out – whip thin in a t-shirt and drawstring pants with a crisp white apron on, a small, wry smile and eyes which were purple – with scrambled eggs.

The next time it had been a piece of toast with a hole cut in the centre, and an egg fried in its place. Shiro had given into his urge, grasped the cook by the front of his apron, and then they’d been rolling on the floor. Each landing a few half-powered hits, and Shiro had been kneed hard in the upper thigh, leaving a beautiful purple bruise. He’d stared at it in the mirror in the bathroom and thought about the cook’s eyes.

And Adam had been pissed.

But Shiro felt something thrumming along his nerves, a kind of excitement. A kind of daring he hasn’t experienced since before his accident. The wiry, arrogant line cook who can’t make eggs knows how to fight. He knows exactly how to pull his punches, and Shiro’s dying to know what one feels like at full force.

The seating hostess shows them to a table, Adam asks for coffee and opens his book with a weary expression while Shiro orders steak and eggs, fully intending not to eat the toast anyway, his two eggs served sunny side up and runny in the middle. Fifteen minutes later, what is placed in front of him is a basket woven from his steak with two eggs baked into it, and a stack of hash browns the height of his dick. Shiro’s eyes go wide as he follows the line of the hand – fingers still resting on the edge of the plate – up a toned bare forearm, all the way to a pair of deep violet eyes and a small but undeniable smirk.

“Morning,” the cook says, in a voice equal parts honey and gravel.

Shiro does not need to look at Adam to know that his boyfriend is mouthing ‘after twelve means it’s the afternoon, actually’ because Adam says it every single time anyone says good morning after mid-fucking-day. Shiro feels his back teeth grinding, but it’s not the wrong eggs making him tense across the shoulders.

“Are you incapable, or just stupid?” he snarls, holding the cook’s gaze.

“Neither.”

Shiro is on his feet before he can stop himself, prosthetic hand fisting in the crisp white apron. Adam says his name, but he’s not listening.

“Parking lot,” the cook says, taking half a step back but making no move to dislodge Shiro’s hand from his apron. It takes Shiro a concerted amount of effort to relax his fingers, like he’s fighting his muscles instincts to hold onto something tight. The fact there are no actual muscles in his hand doesn’t seem to make a difference. The cook turns, and as though hooked on a line, Shiro follows.

In the employee lot behind the Waffle House, the cook pauses, stripping off his apron. He hangs it over a sign directing people not to smoke by the rear exit, then faces Shiro with his arms hanging loose at his sides.

“You wanna hit me, big guy?”

As a tournament competitor, and an instructor, Shiro was always known for his patience. Even before that, even as a kid, he had taken his grandfather’s mantra and lived by it. Patience yields focus. It has allowed him to overcome so many things – fights and frustrations, problems with peers, with students, with Adam – but not this. Now, Shiro can find none of his famed patience, and he lashes out.

The punch doesn’t land, because the cook has moved, and Shiro finds himself side stepping the heel of a hand, which would have caught him tidily under the nose. He gets in a glancing blow on the cook’s shoulder, and the lithe young man dances back on feet far too nimble and skilled to belong to a minimum-wage line cook. Then they are circling each other, jabbing and twisting, fists only connecting lightly as they go. Shiro snaps his teeth, losing his temper with the dance, putting everything into a raw power blow right at the other man’s sternum. It works, but Shiro is not expecting the foot which hooks around his ankle, pulling them both down and off balance. Within a heartbeat they are rolling around on the gritty asphalt, each holding the other’s clothes, punching. Shiro clips the violet eyed young man across the point of his jaw, and is winded a moment later by a well place knee in the diaphragm.

Shiro collapses over the top of him, wheezing from the air forced from his lungs, his entire body shaking. To his extreme surprise, he finds a slim, super-warm hand stroking soothing circle between his shoulder blades.

“That’s it, big guy. Breathe. You’re good.”

Five minutes later, Shiro is sitting with his back against the red brick wall of the Waffle House, lips titled up in a smile as the tension drains out of his body and into the ground.

“Keith,” the cook offers, with a soft, two-fingered salute.

“Shiro,” he returns, grinning broadly. He doesn’t think he’s smiled like this is ages. “So, do you actually know how to fry an egg?”

Keith arches an inky black eyebrow at him, and Shiro’s dick twitches along the crease of his thigh.

“Why don’t you come back next week and find out, champ?”

*

~K~

Keith finishes tying his apron and takes up his knife to begin slicing onions into translucent crests, just as Lance shoulders through the door, looking like he’s already worked for eight solid hours. He hasn’t, but the man has an even poorer sleep schedule than Keith does, and Keith’s a professional sous chef. Lance blinks at him.

“I’m sure I drove to my workplace, not yours.” He clocks in with a scowl. “Why the fuck are you here again?”

“Saturday.” Kinkade chirps up from the front, leaning over the counter with an order slip between two fingers. “It’s his day to fight The Egg Man.”

“Again?” Lance grits his teeth and rounds on Keith, who has made it through half a dozen onions already with no sign of slowing down. By the time this conversation is done, he’ll have prepped all the onions the Waffle House will need all day. “Don’t you have your own restaurant to go to?”

“He’s more on time for your shift than you are Lance,” Kinkade teases as he departs for the coffee machines once more, “and he doesn’t even work here.”

Lance spends so long standing too close and tapping his foot whilst Keith chops that he is forced to stop and look up at his housemate. Lance is probably classed a friend too, but only in the way in which mooching and overly friendly dogs you can’t get rid of are considered pets. He’s Hunk and Pidge’s friend, Keith just lives with them. And living with them is better than continually crashing on head chef Allura’s office couch at the restaurant. He has an actual bed, even if the apartment comes complete with an overactive housemate he honestly can’t stand.

“What?”

“Why are you doing my job?” Lance demands. “Again.”

“You don’t actually want to do it,” Keith points out, returning to slice half an onion down to the base with the barest adjustment of his fingers. “I thought you were trying to make that food blogging thing work for you.”

“Food Vlogger, Keith. Oh my god, it’s like you don’t even know how social media works.” Lance rolls his eyes dramatically. Lance does everything dramatically. “What century were you born in?”

“You were the one who asked me to cover for you after you gave yourself food poisoning.”

“I did not give myself food poisoning-”

“-you shouldn’t eat anywhere where the menu is written in greasepaint on the bar-”

“-it was for a review!” Lance snaps. “And that was eight weeks ago. Why are you still here?”

“Order up!” Kinkade doesn’t bother to pin the slip to the board, but slides it directly across to Keith with a smile. “He’s here. Alone again.”

Keith smiles to himself: Shiro hasn’t come back with his beige-personality-toned boyfriend since the first time they fought in the parking lot.

“You showed up just in time,” Kinkade tells Lance, “you know lover boy isn’t going to stick around afterwards.”

Kinkade is correct, of course. Keith has been up since four; has visited the market, and chosen produce to be sent to the restaurant. He oversaw the delivery of fresh, top quality, fully free range eggs from his uncle’s farm just outside of town; butchered two shoulders of pork, created today’s eggs-for-Shiro from scratch, and prepared for the lunch service, all before showing up at Waffle House. And as soon as he’s done throwing fists in the parking lot, he needs to cross town and take up his position as second in command of the kitchen at Le Saule Pleureur, just in time for late lunch. They don’t seat diners until one, and Keith’s never been late yet. He’s fine, he’ll sleep once the dinner prep is done and before service begins. He’s good at sleeping standing up.

“So, what have you got for him today?”

Keith bends, and pulls a plate from the oven where they have been warming gently, two perfect scotch eggs – a soft boiled egg surrounded by a blanket of herbed sausage meat and covered in crispy breadcrumbs. Sausage meat he ground himself from a rare breed, free range pork loin. The breadcrumbs he made from actual bread. Eggs from his uncle’s farm, because there is no way in hell the Waffle House buys eggs of high enough quality and freshness that Keith would ever serve them runny to someone and risk salmonella poisoning. Lance is full of questions right away, phone in hand to take artsy photos for his blog or whatever, but Keith blocks him with one hand.

“I’ll be back for my knives.” He refuses to use the ones at the Waffle house, for fairly obvious reasons, the same as he no longer uses their eggs to make eggs for Shiro. “Don’t touch them Lance – Ryan does not want to take you to urgent care for slicing off your finger. Again.”

“That was one time-” Lance begins in an obvious huff, but Keith isn’t paying him any attention.

Shiro has been seated at the table nearest the rear door, as now appears to be customary, and as Kinkade said, he is alone. Keith takes a moment to absorb the broadness of his shoulders, the swell of his pecs in the pastel blue Henley, the cut of his jaw so strong that he could grind Keith into the dirt with it and Keith would thank him… And then Keith rearranges his features into something more neutral as he approaches the table, and sits down.

“Those are fucking funny looking eggs.”

“Morning to you too,” Keith returns. “Try one.”

Shiro picks up a fork with his prosthetic hand, and Keith swallows his natural, mechanically minded desire to examine the high tech device. The arm looks more like something Matt might cook up, which Pidge then brings to life in her lab kitchen; rather than something attached to a living breathing person. Instead he observes Shiro, as the man slices one of the scotch eggs into four equal quarters, spears one, and eats it.

Keith sees a lot of people eat his food. At interviews and when critics visit it is a full requirement of the job. Watching the faces of other chefs, the restaurant owners, and various staff members who get roped in to taste test new recipe ideas is a normal part of life for a haute cuisine chef. But none of their reactions are anything as good as watching Shiro's face. Keith knows it’s not just because the little noise Shiro makes means that he likes the flavours and textures Keith has put together. Shiro’s half caught little groan is sinful and soft and the sound shortcuts directly to Keith's crotch. Keith is rather glad his apron will cover him when he next stands up.

But then Shiro is stabbing another quarter of egg, sausage meat, and breadcrumbs, and this he holds out to Keith. The angle is off, Keith can’t take the fork off him without it being weird, and somehow the idea of leaning up on one elbow and taking the morsel with his mouth seems way less strange. Keith tries very hard not to look in Shiro's unusual grey eyes as he closes his mouth around the tines of the fork, and fails. He sits back down with a soft exhale, already cataloguing all of the potential developments of the scotch eggs in his mind. Crumbed black pudding mixed into the sausage meat sounds like a good plan, and he thinks it needs pinch less sage.

Shiro is smiling, and it’s a lovely gesture on his face.

“It’s really good, Keith.”

“Thanks.”

Keith watches Shiro eat, then takes the remaining quarter from the plate when offered it.

“I can’t let you go hungry before we beat each other up,” Shiro jokes as he stands up. “Not when you went to all that effort.”

Keith nearly makes a comment about how fresh egg yolk and pesto filled ravioli is effort, and this is just fun, but he resists. Instead, he gets up and follows Shiro out to the parking lot where they have now fought each other nearly a dozen times. They never really talk about it. Not since the third week when Shiro hadn’t even asked why the eggs were wrong, but just eaten the coddled egg – served with cream and fresh herbs, presented still in its shell – and then jovially offered him his fist. And honestly, Keith doesn’t mind. He likes fighting Shiro. Shiro knows how to fight – possibly professionally, that much is obvious – and Keith enjoys the opportunity to test and stretch himself. They’ve not kept score, and mostly there isn’t a clear winner either. Keith knows Shiro is pulling most of his punches, just like Keith is, because he aches afterwards, but he doesn’t have any broken bones.

In the parking lot, Shiro stretches up to the sky, and Keith lets himself look at the man laces his fingers together over his head, his shirt riding up to show a delicious slice of rippled abs. His pants sit low enough that Keith knows the man must shave or wax his treasure trail. The image is more than inspiring. But when Shiro shapes up toward him, all the things Keith's uncles ever taught him about defending himself against larger opponents come swinging into play, and he’s already moving when Shiro aims the punch.

It’s familiar and nice, calming even, the back and forth of jabs and crosses, the way they move around each other over the gritty asphalt. Then Shiro gets a decent right cross in, his prosthetic fist making even a half force blow hurt enough to bruise, and Keith tackles him directly to the ground. He’s not careless enough to bang Shiro's head into the tarmac, and Shiro isn’t honourable enough not to use that moment of mercy to flip them both over, landing a blow against the side of Keith’s ribs, even as Keith tries for a scuffle at his shoulder. Mostly they are smacking each other’s hands away, their legs tangled as they each try to get the upper hand.

And then Shiro is pinned beneath him, Keith has his fingers wrapped around Shiro’s wrists, but the position over Shiro’s head is putting him in a precarious stretch, and he is pressed flat along the bigger man’s front. Keith huffs, breathing hard, and he knows he is hard. He knows that Shiro must be able to feel it, because kitchen work pants are thin and breezy by design. And then Shiro sighs too, and the slight shift allows Keith to feel the long, salamander-grill-hot length of Shiro’s own erection against his thigh. And fuck, Keith’s not sure what to do with that information. His body does though, and before he can think too much about the context – of parking lot, of fighting, that this guy has a boyfriend somewhere – he is closing the distance between them.

A scant half inch to target, the look in Shiro's eyes stops him.

Far from unwilling, he looks desperate and broken and achingly beautiful. It’s enough to make Keith smile, change his angle to whisper “pinned ya!” into Shiro’s ear instead, before rolling off the larger man and sitting up with his knees at his chest. He knows next to nothing about Shiro, but already Keith knows he does not want to be the reason this guy goes home feeling guilty. Shiro comes here for some kind of weird stress relief, and without being asked, Keith wants to be that for him. Making Shiro feel bad is the exact opposite of what he wants. He glances over at where Shiro is still gazing skyward, looking lost.

“You OK there, champ?”

“I…” Shiro begins, and then he frowns, his expression shutting down. “You don’t want to hear about my problems.”

“I’ll listen.” Keith knows he should already be making his way across town, but he stays where he’s sitting, watching Shiro from the corner of one eye.

“My life isn’t what I thought it would be…” Shiro begins, and Keith listens.

For the first time ever, he’s late for lunch service. They get a major critic in right at the end of service and Allura is swamped at the pass. Keith pulls together a special textures of pork dish, seemingly from thin air, and saves the day.

The review is glowing, but not nearly as much as Keith is. Hunk says Keith is walking around shining like he swallowed the sun.

*

~S~

Shiro comes home with grit in his hair, an oily black smear on his shirt, and a beautiful purple bruise – the same kind of purple as Keith’s eyes – blooming on his ribs. Adam catches him regarding it in the full-length bathroom mirror Shiro loves and Adam thinks is a pointless self-aggrandising over-indulgence, and puts his foot down.

No more Waffle House.

Shiro’s expression of wonder and soft adoration for the physical manifestation of his fight with Keith shuts down completely, and he finds himself grinding his back teeth – again – as Adam talks at him like he’s a small child.

“This is not a healthy obsession Takashi. It’s not good for your recovery to stress yourself too much. And what if you damage your prosthetic by fighting like that?” Shiro wants to snap that his prosthetic is not only covered by insurance, but also built to withstand far higher pressures than the rest of his human body and would probably survive fine if Shiro got run over by another rogue hoverbike, but he doesn’t. “If it gets damaged, they might not even be able to fit the top range exoskin onto it.”

“I don’t want-” Shiro begins.

“You’ll change your mind. I know you, Takashi. You’ll get bored of pretending to be a cyborg eventually and then you’ll want to look normal and human like the rest of us.”

Shiro tries to calm his breathing. He wants to hit something. Counting as he exhales doesn’t work. His prosthetic becomes a fist on subconscious thought alone. But Shiro’s never hit someone who didn’t ask for it. Except Keith.

Brilliant, star speckled violet eyes are crisp and perfect in his inner vision, and Shiro releases the tension across his shoulders. It felt so good to talk to Keith. To have him listen, offering no comment at all as Shiro had gritted out his frustrations into the air between them. Shiro had apologised for keeping him so long from work, but Keith had only smiled and said it was worth it.

He breathes deep again, and realises that Adam is still talking.

“It’s our anniversary soon. I am not eating breakfast food on our anniversary.”

“OK.”

“Don’t you have anything else to say for yourself?”

Shiro considers all the possibilities. The idea of putting a great big hole through the middle of his four-year relationship by saying ‘I nearly kissed the cook at Waffle House; I didn’t, but I wanted to’ is far more tempting than it ought to be. He doesn’t.

“I’m going to take a shower.”

In the shower, he traces the shape of the bruise left by Keith’s sharp knuckles, and smiles. He promises himself he won’t think of Keith.

He fails.

*

Adam mentions his desire not to eat fucking breakfast food at least once a day for the next week, and Shiro actually does snap at him. Even if he hadn’t lain down a fucking ultimatum about not going back to Waffle House, Shiro wouldn’t have taken him to some cheap chain restaurant for their anniversary in any case. The table – at the best fine dining restaurant within fifty miles – has been booked for months already. And the deposit is non-refundable. Otherwise Shiro might not have bothered. Whenever he thinks of their anniversary, he feels dread building in the pit of his stomach. He knows what Adam wants, and he knows he doesn't want the same thing.

This is going to be their last anniversary. He heard Adam say as much on the phone to one of his friends – his, not Shiro’s, because Shiro has never fully warmed to Adam’s friends – and he is fully aware of the context of that comment. This will be their last anniversary as boyfriends, because as far as Adam is concerned, now that Shiro’s stopped doing ju jitsu, he can finally grow up and they can get married. The idea of asking Adam to marry him makes Shiro want to punch things even more.

But Adam’s right, because this is going to be their last anniversary. Shiro isn’t actually sure what he’s going to do, but he knows he can’t drag himself through this pretence for another year. He’s contacted his old gym, he can get back on the mats, restart his training and hopefully pick up a teaching position again. Either Adam is going to accept it and move on, or this dinner is going to blow up spectacularly in his face.

The restaurant is exactly as suave and fancy as Shiro suspected it would be. Everything is crisp and clean and the crease along the corner of the tablecloth looks like it could cut him. The glasses sparkle, the butter knife is so shiny he can see his reflection in it and the menu has no prices listed. There is a waiter who’s only job appears to be delivering a frothy pair of frozen palette cleansing ices to their table, even before they have ordered. Adam looks deeply impressed, his smile is coy and blushing. Shiro dreads dessert, if they even get that far.

One long wall of the restaurant is open to the kitchen, and it’s kind of fun to watch the chefs as they work – in their crisp white jackets and coloured skull caps – calling to each other and talking almost entirely in French as they assemble beautiful dishes to order. Half the stuff Shiro cannot name, but he wants to eat it all.

After ordering, Shiro listens with the intent of paying attention, as Adam recounts the latest drama as his office. Shiro knows none of these people and doesn’t understand why the events are either relevant or funny, considering Adam isn’t even involved in this particular story. But then between sips of wine and water – Shiro's not drinking because he’s driving, and alcohol hasn’t agreed with him since well before his accident anyway – their starters arrive and interrupt Adam, to Shiro’s eternal gratification.

Adam’s starter is exactly is it should be; a beautifully arranged trio of salmon, garnished with pickled sea vegetables, samphire, tiny bright spots of beetroot puree as smooth as silk, speckles of black salt, crystallised edible flowers, and delicate heap of white truffle shoestring fries. Shiro’s starter on the other hand, is not.

A platter of eggs is placed in front of him. Every kind of egg Shiro could have ever imagined and several more besides. There are scotch eggs, coddled eggs, poached eggs, three different kinds of omelette, scrambled eggs, devilled eggs with at least two types of fillings. A boiled egg in an egg cup with toast soldiers, an eggy-in-the-basket, what Shiro is fairly certain is a pickled egg, and a herb topped egg baked into a basket made of crispy bacon. There is a second, far smaller plate, and on it are two perfect slices of toast and two eggs fried sunny side up, more golden than anything Shiro has ever seen before in his life. He stabs one with his fork, and watches the yolk ooze like delicious lava across the beautifully set whites.

Adam gapes, but Shiro dares to look across at the open kitchen where he can see the chefs creating their fancy concoctions, his heart beating hard against his ribs. And there is Keith in a double-breasted white chefs jacket, the insignia of Le Saule Pleureur embroidered on his left breast along with the title Sous. He is leaning one shoulder against the tiled wall, his lips turned up in a little half smile, giving Shiro a salute. A fairly large knife which looks extremely sharp is in his other hand, casually, like an afterthought. He’s still wearing a bruise on his jaw from the last time they fought.

Shiro has no idea what to say.

Adam has plenty to say, none of it good, but Shiro tunes him out somewhere between ‘this is an affront!’ and ‘aren’t you going to do something Takashi?!’. Shiro stands, crossing the otherwise hushed dining room, heading towards the young man he now knows is a chef and not a cook. A man who he wants to know better. He knows he is driving a wedge into his relationship which cannot be removed; but he also knows that his heart has already left Adam, even if he hasn’t said the words. It almost helps when he hears his boyfriend hiss at him from across the fancy dining room.

“Takashi! Get back here! If you decide to go, don't expect me to be here when you get back.”

But Shiro isn’t looking back and doesn’t stop until he’s standing at the end of the long bar where dishes wait for mere moments before being whisked away by elegant wait-staff. All is under the order of the beautiful, dark-skinned, silver haired chef who is running the pass and looks like she could snap Shiro in two without breaking a sweat. Keith is smiling broadly now, smug, his eyes shining like distant nebula brought close enough to touch. An inky eyebrow arches, sharp looking teeth setting into his lower lip as he surveys Shiro’s outfit for the evening.

“So,” the sous chef drawls eventually, once Shiro’s internal temperature has climbed a few degrees just by being looked at, “how do you like your eggs in the morning?”

*

~K~

Keith finishes up a five-cover table of the restaurant's famed six-course tasting menu and takes his break, nabbing a pair of lemon tartlets with cracked pastry from the end of Hunk’s bench in the patisserie kitchen. He is not actually expecting to find Shiro sitting on the curb side, looking strangely bereft. Keith hands him one of the lemon tarts, and by the time they are nothing but crumbs, he simply holds out his hand to Shiro, and the big man takes it and follows him back inside.

No amount of kitchen noise is enough to drown out Keith’s awareness of Shiro’s every movement. He sits at the long table in the fresh prep area of the kitchen, where the staff usually gather for a family meal before the start of dinner service with his phone face down beside him, peeling the apples that Keith left him with.

Keith had needed to apologise, to get the words out there, especially in light of the verbal tongue lashing Shiro had been subjected to outside the restaurant, after Keith’s presentation of every type of egg he could devise. The beige boyfriend had kept his voice low, an angry hiss like a particularly pissed off snake, but Keith didn’t need to hear the words to understand the general shape of what was said. The people who showed up at Le Saule Pleureur with hearts and stars in their eyes were always expecting some great romantic gesture of commitment. And it was obvious that Shiro was not there with that in mind. Keith had listened to the guy talk for nearly an hour about how trapped he felt by the expectations put upon him to settle down, be normal, and quit everything that brought him joy. But even if Keith hadn’t known that, he would still have known – just by looking – that Shiro had no intention whatsoever of proposing to the shadow-less man who had arrived on his arm.

But he’d still looked sort of broken and lost when Keith had found him outside. Shiro reassured him that he had not just put a bullet through his relationship because of Keith. Rather, it had simply been the final straw in an exceedingly large bale. That makes Keith feel slightly better about wandering over from his station near the pass to the long table, scooping up another apple as he sits opposite Shiro.

“So, you going home tonight?”

Shiro blinks at him, hands still moving over the apple, and Keith sees he is taking off the skin in a long continuous strip of peel.

“Am I in the way? Do you need me to go-”

Keith interrupts him by kicking him – gently – under the table.

“No. you’re fine. Hunk still has the last few tables to send dessert to, and clean down takes a little while in a kitchen this size.” He gestures to the apples. “And now I’m already started early on prep for the savoury pork and apple tortellini for tomorrow. Come, let me show you how to season the apples and we’ll put them in to stew slowly overnight.”

Shiro is good company in the kitchen. He watches Keith closely, and does exactly as he’s shown, measuring spices with far greater precision than Keith usually bothers with. The star anise heads are actually counted to eleven, rather than the approximate handful Keith always ends up with. Recipes are important, and measurements matter, but Keith has earned his place in one of the best kitchens in the country on his talent, intuition, and gut feelings. His plans are hard for other people to follow, and it usually takes a concerted effort from both Pidge and Hunk to get him to translate a recipe into something concrete and legible. As they put the last of the apples into the special slow cooker, Keith catches Shiro smiling softly. It brings a beautiful light to his face.

“Do you want to come home with me tonight?”

“Yes.” The answer is breathed out in a rush, and Shiro’s flushes hotly, the tips of his ears pink, looking like he thinks he ought to feel guilty about his answer.

“Good.”

“I’ve never broken up with someone I lived with before.” Shiro tells him as Keith shrugs out of his chef’s whites and yanks a red t-shirt on over his head. He does not miss the way Shiro’s eyes follow the lines of his torso, like it’s involuntary and he cannot help but stare. “I just know he’s going to want us to go through all our stuff together.” Shiro jams his thumbs into his pockets, tension crawling across his shoulders in a way that Keith knows all too well. “I don’t give a shit about stuff.”

Keith arches an eyebrow, allowing the man to continue if he wants to.

“I just want my gi and my ju jitsu belts. Screw everything else. He chose all the furniture and decor in the apartment anyway.” Shiro exhales sharply. “He painted the entire place magnolia whilst I was in hospital. I wanted to scream.”

Keith hangs his leather jacket over one shoulder with a crooked finger as they exit the restaurant. Keith waves goodbye to his head chef and boss Allura, gesturing to the otherwise empty kitchen as they go. He knows she will be there a while longer, silver hair tumbling out of her once-tight bun as she reviews menus and wine pairings, but it won’t hurt to remind her that she can actually go home at a vaguely reasonable hour. As they step out into the cool night air, a single glance tells Keith all he needs to know about Shiro. That haunted, frustrated look is achingly familiar.

“Fight?” Keith offers, but to his surprise, the colour drains from Shiro’s face.

“What? Why? I don’t want to hit you Keith.”

“Really? I did just help you to-”

Shiro interrupts him with a hand this time, but this hand is slightly cool textured polymer and metal prosthetic. The thumb which caresses over his jaw and lower lip has the faintest thrum beneath the surface to simulate a pulse.

“You helped me to take the first step in fixing my life. We were gonna break up tonight anyway, you just made me miss out on my main course first.”

“Damn.” Keith takes the desire to eat very seriously. “What were you going to have?”

“The one with pork… and noodles?”

“Sticky miso glazed pork belly with hand cut soba noodles and chilli pork consommé? I’ll make it for you.”

“Keith…”

“What? I am a chef after all. I designed most of that dish, though Pidge helped with the sauce.”

Shiro arches an eyebrow this time, his hand falling to Keith's neck and the softness of his collar over his clavicle. But he doesn’t break the touch.

“Who’s Pidge?”

*

“Oh-my-fucking-god!”

“Pidge please, you kiss our mother with that mouth.”

“Keith’s brought The Egg Man home!”

The last part of Pidge’s screech has everyone’s attention, and Keith feels heat rising up the back of his neck as his three housemates and Matt – because of fucking course Matt is here too – crowd towards the door of the apartment. As would be expected from three chefs and a wannabe food vlogger, a good proportion of the shared space in the apartment is kitchen or pseudo-kitchen. Appliances and power cables spilling over onto extra free-standing cabinets and surfaces bought cheap and bolted into place in what was probably designed to be a living room. There is a couch though, so it still technically counts as a lounging space. And a good thing too, because Lance is draped over a butcher’s block in a face mask and silk pyjamas, and Hunk is sipping a cup of green tea as is his habit after a long service. Both Pidge and her brother are wearing lab coats in lieu of aprons, safety goggles pushed up into their hair as they test out what appears to be a new spherificator loaded with what better not be Keith’s personal supply of specially imported soy sauce.

“Fuck me…” Lance’s eyes are wide as saucers. “Keith! You homewrecker!”

There is a long moment of silence where Keith resists killing Lance with an audible gritting of his teeth, and then everyone starts talking at once. Hunk is trying to apologise, Pidge is half a heartbeat away from flinging something messy and-or expensive at Lance’s head. Lance is openly staring at Shiro as though dumbstruck, even though Keith knows – and would much rather not know – that Lance is as straight as they come, and Matt looks like he wants to interrogate Shiro. Keith grips Shiro’s forearm and hauls him around so that he is standing between his housemates and his… not date.

“Alright! Out!”

“What?

“Keith!? Buddy-”

“No. Go.” Keith turns to Shiro and gives him a little shove into the apartment. “Bathroom is the white door, my bedroom is the red one. I’ll deal with these idiots. Go.”

To Keith’s intense relief, Shiro nods, looking dazed but not horrified, and heads down towards the bathroom. As soon as they hear the door lock behind him, the others start up with their questions again.

“You pulled The Egg Man?”

“What the fuck, Lance?”

“Where’s he going to sleep?”

Three sets of eyes swivel to Pidge, and then four pairs turn to him expectantly. Keith folds his arms

“Fuck off, the lot of you.”

No one moves.

“You all seem to have forgotten that I am by far the best with knives and could kill you all where you stand.”

It’s Matt who breaks the silence with the most faux-cough Keith has ever heard.

“Cough – Keith’s bed – cough!”

Keith doesn’t try to murder him, but it’s a near thing.

“Look. I will pay for the four of you to get out of here. Go see a movie, something long, and get burgers and milkshakes afterwards, OK?”

Pidge crows, and Hunk blushes darkly.

“HAHA! Pay up boys! I told you Keith would bring him home by the end of the season.”

Lances groans, but to Keith’s horror, Hunk – sweet, honest, lovely Hunk who makes the best parfait Keith has ever put in his mouth – silently reaches into his pocket and hands Pidge a roll of money.

“I said you weren’t allowed to bet on my sex life!”

There is the unmistakable noise of someone’s head thudding into a door. Matt smirks.

“These walls aren’t that thick, Keith. C’mon Pidge. You can stay with me after the movie to protect your innocence.”

The molecular gastronomy wizard glares at her brother.

“My innocence was lost years ago big brother, when I saw you doing-”

Matt covers her mouth with his hand, already reaching for their coats. She licks him. Siblings are disgusting.

“-you should put locks on your door is all I’m saying!”

“You should learn to knock.”

“I was twelve!”

Keith doesn’t take his eyes off them until all four are safely on the other side of the door, coats, a change of pants for Lance, and hush money in hand. Only once he locks the door and hears the jostle of bodies trying to fight for the honour of pushing the button in the elevator – because they are literal children sometimes, Keith swears – does he allow himself to relax. Only then does he remember that there is a man in his bathroom. A man he has physically fought with nearly a dozen times, a man who he tried to kiss, and a man who might have just been broken up with because of him. Regardless of everything else Shiro has told him about his relationship and its inevitable end, Keith knows that this is shitty timing. But he also doesn’t want to just let the possibility of whatever spark he feels when he’s with Shiro slip away.

Determined, Keith shrugs out of his jacket and stands his boots by the wall before crossing the apartment in socked feet to lean against the frame of the bathroom door.

“Hey, Shiro. They’re gone.”

There is a long silence, and Keith frowns, craning his neck to put his ear near the door, trying to listen for movement.

“You OK in there, big guy?”

“Did your friends really…” He lets the sentence hang there, trailing off into the sound of a not-human hand stroking down the thin plywood of the door.

“Yeah. Though I’m not sure I always want to describe them as my friends. They’re like...slightly useful stray cats.” He thinks of Hunk standing in the doorway of Allura’s office, looking worn and worried and telling him he cannot keep sleeping on Allura’s couch in-between services, and chuckles to himself. “Though, maybe they’d say that I was the stray…”

The bathroom door creaks open, interrupting Keith just before he says something nice about his friends and housemates out loud. Keith smiles as Shiro emerges looking exactly like someone who has spent the last five minutes washing their face to cover for the fact that they aren’t actually sure why they’re in an unfamiliar bathroom. He drags his prosthetic hand through his hair, which Keith can tell he’s done a dozen times already, judging by the generally dishevelled state of his two-tone locks.

“Are they always like that?”

“Usually, yes. Sorry.” Keith shrugs. “You get used to them. Not that you should feel like you have to get used to them or anything. C’mon, I’ll show you my room. You can get some rest.”

They are halfway through Keith’s red door – he had to pick a colour because Hunk and Pidge both loved the idea of colour coded bedrooms and Lance said black was too depressing – when Shiro tugs back on his hand.

“I’m sorry, Keith.”

Keith frowns, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I shouldn’t impose on you like this. I mean, I have literally nowhere else to go and I don’t want to try and find a decent hotel so late but-”

Keith rolls his eyes, and rocks forward on the balls of his feet – god his feet ache after such a hectic service – but he cannot bring himself to care. He reaches up into Shiro’s space, telegraphs the movement of his hand like he would do with a hot pan in the kitchen, before wrapping it around the back of Shiro’s neck and closing the distance between them with a kiss. There is a half second of flickering hesitation, and then Shiro is groaning, opening against him, kissing like he fights. Full of raw power and well trained skill that’s not been recently used, and Keith already knows he never wants to stop. When they part to gulp down oxygen, Shiro is blushing a beautiful shade of pink.

“I can’t just steal your bed, Keith.”

Keith takes a step back and deliberately looks his new friend up and down. When Shiro’s blush darkens, Keith looks him up and down again, making sure to drag his eyes over Shiro’s broad chest and trim waist, the bulge in his smart dress pants, and the girth of his muscled thighs. He grins broadly.

“I’ll fight you for the bed if you really want, but if you insist on staying on the couch, I won’t make you breakfast.”

Shiro blinks like he might have just undergone a severe malfunction of consciousness.

“You’re making me breakfast?”

Keith nods.

“And several more meals besides. I still owe you an actual dinner after all. Now are you coming in, Shiro?”

Shiro takes a step forward, and Keith beams. Truth be told, he’s really sick of having to race across town in the middle of prep to make eggs for Shiro in the shitty Waffle House kitchen and fight him afterwards. He loves both the cooking and the fighting, but not the schedule they’re currently working with, and he would love to get maybe six hours sleep instead of waking several hours before dawn to catch himself up on things that he’ll otherwise miss.

“You sure you want-” Shiro begins, but Keith cuts him off by pushing Shiro’s shirt up over his impressive abs and the swell of pecs Keith has longed to see for himself.

“As far as I’m concerned, if you want the sofa that badly, we can fight naked.”

Shiro’s blush does extend down his chest, Keith groans in pleasure of this discovery.

“Best of three?” he offers with a knowing smirk.

Shiro steps in and closes the door behind him.

They don’t hear the others come back several hours later.

*

~S~

Shiro wakes to the knowledge that, for the first time since leaving the hospital nearly two years ago, he is in a bed which is not his own; and for the first time in many more years than that, he aches with the deep pleasure of having been fucked to within an inch of his life. He stretches in the bed, rolling to press his face into the still warm sheets, smiling at the flood of memories of the previous night. All the bedding is a rucked-up mess around him, and the air smells of sex and melted butter.

Melted butter? Shiro jerks his head up from the bed just as the door pushes open to reveal Keith in profile, all long strong limbs and subtle delicious curves, wearing what for a moment appears to be only a blue and white striped butchers’ apron. He hip checks the door closed behind him, revealing a stripe of red boxers as well, as Shiro is almost disappointed by that. He remembers Keith getting up from the bed to pad across the room in search of more lube and another condom at some point during the several rounds of sex they had indulged each other in, and Shiro already knows he will never tire of the view of his sculpted ass.

Keith’s eyes meet his as the door closes fully, and Shiro resists the temptation to hide his face as Keith smiles, eyes tracking deliberately across his body. Being looked at by Keith is intense – it has been from the very first time the lithe chef brought him his first incorrect eggs – and Shiro can feel the way his body reacts to the phantom touch. He blushes, thankful to be lying on his front as his cock chubs up, impossibly eager considering how many orgasms they’ve already shared.

“I could get very used to coming back to this sight,” Keith purrs as he wanders over. “Here.”

The plate he holds out to Shiro is somehow both artfully arranged and piled high, and Shiro stares at the selection presented to him.

“Shiro?”

“I thought you said you were going to make me breakfast…”

Both plates are stacked high with waffles the most perfect shade of brown Shiro has ever seen. Each topped with a pile of just-crisp but still chewy bacon slices which he knows from their thickness did not come out of a packet. Wedged next to one stack is a stoneware coffee cup of what Shiro can smell is be warmed maple syrup, and his stomach rumbles. But it’s not just waffles he sees as Keith sits down, because each plate also has a small pyramid of berry and cream cheese filled French toast roll-ups, dark red juices staining the powdered sugar. The plate without the maple syrup bears instead, a pair of hash browns stacked on their edges in order to fit. It’s everything Shiro could ever want, held out to him by a man who really is everything he wants.

He already knows it’s true, and somehow, it’s not scary like it should be.

“This is breakfast.” Keith nudges the rim of the plate into his shoulder, and Shiro swings up into a seated position in order to take it from his outstretched hand. Keith fishes a fork from the pocket of the apron, and snorts as he holds it out to Shiro, eyes dropping to his crotch. “Good morning to you too, big boy. Still not worn out?”

“Keith!” Shiro whines, jabbing the chef with the blunt end of the fork as Keith sits down next to him, turned so that they are knee to knee. “You know how it is in the mornings…”

Keith answers him by setting down his own plate, leaning into Shiro’s space and wrapping a hand around his cock. Shiro’s dick springs to attention, producing a soft chuckle from Keith that Shiro wants to bottle and replay over and over again, because he’s never heard another living creature make such a pleased noise.

“Don’t mind me,” Keith purrs, dragging him thumb across the head of Shiro’s cock. “Eat your breakfast.”

“Keith-!”

Fuck, Keith’s fingers look so small wrapped around his cock, but he handles him with the same surety as he does his knives. Memory of watching Keith in the kitchen – all tight and sharp movements, every muscle tense and precise – mingles with the memories of fighting him, and Shiro finds his breath shallow. The knowledge that Keith can pick him up and fuck him, fold him in half and pound him into delirious oblivion, only serves to make Shiro whimper into the other man’s touch.

Keith takes his plate back, setting it aside before pushing him back into the bed, settling between Shiro’s legs before proceeding to wrap his lips around his cock, and suck Shiro’s soul out through his dick. Keith is a great fighter, clearly a gifted chef, an incredible fuck, but this… Shiro is certain there is no one on the planet better at sucking cock than Keith. Keith swallows, only arching an eyebrow at the half-gasped warning Shiro manages to produce between moaning his name interspersed with ‘god’ and ‘oh fuck’, before eventually releasing Shiro’s cock from the warmth of his mouth with a soft smile.

“You still with me, Shiro?”

“Fuck… you’re amazing.” He finds himself echoing the warm grin, reaching to run his fingers through Keith’s hair as the other man settles over his chest, one ear pressed to his sternum. “Would it be wrong to still want breakfast?”

Keith’s barked laugh is as welcome a sound as the moan he’d made with Shiro’s dick in his mouth.

“That’s what I like about you Shiro. An insatiable appetite, and an insatiable appetite.” Keith reaches down and snags one of the plates, resting the still warm ceramic on the half of Shiro’s chest he isn’t using as a pillow. “I’d be more offended if you didn’t want to eat, to be honest.” Keith kisses directly over his nipple and Shiro bites back a whimper. “Pour the syrup big guy, you’ve still got both hands free.”

Shiro does as asked wiping the rim of the cup with the first finger of his prosthetic. The moment he’s finished Keith is grabbing his wrist, popping the digit in his mouth. The thousand nano-sensors shortcut the experience of Keith’s tongue directly into his frontal cortex, and flood his brain with endorphins. He groans.

“I love that you’re so tactile,” Keith says, cutting and spearing a corner of waffle with his fork.

“I love that you’re…” Shiro has no end for his sentence, but Keith only smiles knowingly, and taps his lips with the sticky waffle.

“Here, eat something.”

Shiro meets his violet eyes, and knows he’s as helpless now as he was that first day in the Waffle House. He can’t resist.

“No eggs this morning?”

Breakfast is cold by the time they get to it, because Keith makes him eat his words first, but it’s no less delicious for that.