keith kogane has not called nor phoned you in two weeks. two weeks. that’s long enough to leave you believing he is not planning on getting in contact ever again - you have been added to the long list of people with whom keith has cut off and abandoned because he can’t handle getting close to people.
fair enough. you played it off as if you didn’t care, shrugging any time anyone asked you where keith was, how keith was, why keith had suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. you knew keith well - this was just what he did. his past didn’t let him have tight relationships with people, and you hadn’t been fool enough to think you could be the exception.
nonetheless, his sudden disappearance wasn’t enough to stop you from picking up the phone at four in the morning.
“keith?” your voice is groggy. you deepen it a little bit in your attempts to make him feel bad for waking you up at the crack of dawn. outside, even the birds are asking what the hell you’re doing up at this ungodly hour.
“y/n.” keith doesn’t sound groggy. you want to punch him. “are you awake?”
“no.”
“i need a favour.”
“and i need a million pounds.” you pause. “and milk. i used the last of it last night.”
“i’m serious. where are you right now?”
you frown. “my house. why?”
he inhales deeply, takes a moment to reply. it’s this space of silence that has you realising perhaps this isn’t a joke, perhaps keith really is in trouble. slowly, you sit up, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as your brain immediately fumbles through the long list of possible reasons behind keith’s unexpected phone call.
“are you alright?” you ask.
“i need you to come pick me up from the police station.”
you pause. well, in truth, his confession isn’t as shocking as you’d originally thought it would be - keith could have honestly been calling you from the grave, asking you to go and pick up his discarded corpse, and you wouldn’t have been surprised. this seems light.
“right...,” you drawl. “do i even want to ask?”
“you can ask questions when you get here. and please hurry - the police men keep looking at me.”
“they will do if you’re in custody. that’s their job.”
“are you coming or not?”
you sigh. “you owe me one.”
“i know i do. i always owe you one.” before you can question this statement, the gruff voice of a stranger echoes through the phone, ordering keith to cut it short. keith - being keith - doesn’t even bother saying goodbye before he swiftly hangs up, leaving you a puzzled mess.
you shake your head, stuffing your phone in your pockets. you murmur to yourself as you pull on your sweatpants and an old, oversized hoodie, swearing this will be the last time you ever do anything for him, swearing he doesn’t have a hold on you, promising yourself that you fell out of love with him ages ago.
---
he’s standing there like a lost puppy. you burst out laughing.
you roll down the passenger side window just so he and the police officer can hear you cackling in the drivers seat. keith catches a glimpse of you and immediately blushes bright red, but he has nowhere else to go. he’s accompanied by a police man outside the station, the two of them standing in the rain. the police man holds an umbrella, but keith is standing outside of it because he’s keith and god forbid he rely on any person of authority for anything.
so, he’s drenched, and he’s pouting, and his black hair is falling in his eyes. his hands are bound by a pair of handcuffs. honestly, you’ve never seen him look so pathetic.
you park the car in front of the station and hastily scramble out, pressing the back of your hand to your mouth in any attempt to stifle the laughter that you have already exposed upon pulling up to the scene. the police man sees you and starts forward, and you know you should feel all types of intimidated, but you can’t keep your eyes off keith. he’s glaring at you through his hair, and when you get close enough to see him clearly, he mouths the words “shut up” in your direction.
you turn to the police man. “officer.”
“you’re here for kogane?” he asks.
“i am indeed. terribly sorry if he’s been a bother.”
the police man hums, taking a folded sheet of paper out of the belt around his waist. he unfolds it and thrusts it in your direction, immediately pointing to the first question: relation to detainee.
you snicker. “detainee. oh keith, this is real.”
“please answer the question,” the officer demands.
“my partner.” keith’s voice zaps through the air, and suddenly the rain is quiet. your head snaps up, eyes zoning in on where he stands; he’s staring at the police officer, but you don’t fail to notice the way he awkwardly rings his hands in front of him. “y/n is my partner, alright? we live together.”
the officer taps the page. “then write that down.”
you do so, hands suddenly trembling though you’re not sure whether it’s because of the pouring rain or something else entirely. you fill in the rest of the collection sheet, stating your name and occupation and age and all the stuff that seems most irrelevant, considering you have no plans to be back here any time soon.
and then keith is uncuffed, and the two of you are clambering into your too-small and too-warm car, and keith is going silent all over again.
usually, you’re good at filling in silence. there’s definitely not a shortage of things to talk about, considering you’ve just picked him up from the police station for a reason you are still unsure about.
however, you keep remembering the lie he’d told to the officer, replaying it over and over in your head, trying desperately to figure out if he was just saving his own ass or not.
keith leans his head against the window and mumbles, “i told kosmo to pounce on a group of boys who were throwing rocks at my kitchen window.”
you choke on air. “keith.”
“turns out one of them was, like, fifteen, and he got his mum to call the police.”
“kosmo didn’t do it, did he? they’ll put him down if he hurt anyone.”
keith shook his head, rubbing his eyes. “no, but they heard me telling him to, so they freaked. i’ve been in there for, like, four hours.”
“now i think you deserved it.”
keith scoffs. “sorry if i woke you up. you were the only person i could think of.”
you raise a brow. outside, the rain batters against the window and the sun is just starting to peak over the horizon. it’s still too dark to turn your headlights off, but it’s light enough that, when you glance over, you can watch keith nibbling his bottom lip as unspoken thoughts wisp through his head. he has on such a keith expression, and you wonder if you ever actually left his side at all.
“i’m also sorry for - you know - disappearing off the face of the earth like that.”
to this, you say nothing. part of you wants to say it’s okay, but the wiser part of you knows that isn’t true - it’s not okay. keith’s mistrust of people isn’t okay. the fact that he thinks it’s okay to just ditch anyone who shows even an ounce of evidence that they want to stick around isn’t okay, and you won’t be the idiot to get it into his head that it’s fine.
you tap your fingers against the steering wheel.
keith bites his lip, glancing at you. “are you mad at me?”
“you sound like a five year old.”
he lowers his voice. “you angry?”
you snicker, glancing at him. at the sound of your amusement, a fleeting smile crosses his lips, and before either of you can really understand what’s happening, you’re laughing. full laughs. laughter you only shared a few times, because keith never got like this. and maybe it was just the sleep deprivation, or maybe he really was happy right now, but you weren’t going to question it. not right now.
keith hiccups himself back to reality, shaking his head so little droplets of water splatter against your arm. you pull your elbow into your side, sending him a cheeky glare that he simply rolls his eyes at.
and then you ask the question that’s been playing on your brain for the entire drive, because keith is happy and maybe happy keith will be easier to talk to than sad, gazing-out-the-window keith.
“why did you tell that police officer i was your partner?”
keith tenses. suddenly, it’s like the laughter never happened. never before have you seen someone’s giddy smile fade so quickly, replaced by his usual look of shield, shield, shield, don’t talk to me.
he scratches the back of his neck, turning his gaze back towards the window. outside, the dirt road passes beneath you, and a farm house goes by. “i don’t think friends are allowed to sign a detainee out. i didn’t want to take any risks.”
you narrow your eyes. “i’m pretty sure a detainee can be lifted by anyone. it doesn’t-”
“i didn’t want to risk it-”
“yeah, well, that’s a stupid ass excuse, because you’ve been arrested before and you would know-”
“alright, so many i kind of told the officer that you were my partner and you’d be picking me up.” he groans as if this sentence has exasperated him. “i don’t even know why i did it - it just came out, and then i couldn’t back out of it because he’s a fucking police officer.”
you grip the wheel a little tighter, unsure how to respond. there’s a million things you want to say, a million things you want to confess, like how you melt every time keith looks into the sun and you can look at the violet of his eyes without the added storm of anger and discomfort that always seems to cloud over them; or how you’ve been in love with him for months and he’s never noticed because haha surprise! keith kogane has no feelings and he’s completely oblivious to everything around him, and you have never stood a chance with him before, and-
“it’s not that bad of a cover up.” keith’s voice is a mumble, barely audible over the sound of your heartbeat and the slash of rain against the windows. he shrugs, awkwardly glancing over at you. “he believed it. i think we make a good looking couple.”
you choke again. you wish you could convey surprise in a more attractive manner, but you can’t always get what you wish for. “that’s a very bold statement to make.”
keith shrugs, looking out the window again. “it’s my opinion. make of it what you will.”
“i will.” you pause. “i think we make a good looking couple, too.”
keith stiffens. “good. we’re on the same page then.”
“are we?”
keith reaches over, and your heart stops in your chest when he takes one of your hands from the wheel, placing your hand flat against his thigh. you cannot turn to look at him, and it’s torture, but you bask in the feel of his fingers tracing a feather light trail along your palm, up each of your fingers before gliding back into the middle of your palm, where he rubs a tiny circle into the flesh. he then clasps his own hand against your own and twines his fingers with yours, as if that’s where it’s always meant to be.
it fits perfectly. strangely, so does the entire situation - it just fits, like this is a puzzle piece of your life and keith has just found it hidden under a table or something, and he’s just slotted it right into the story that is your existence and now the big picture is complete and everything just makes sense, and-
“please concentrate on the road,” keith whispers.
you flick your eyes to him for only a brief second, but it’s long enough to catch him staring at you. he has a playful little smirk on his face.
you pry your hand from his grip and slap it back on the wheel. “you’re the distraction.”
“in a good way?”
you swallow. “kind of. depends if we crash or not.”
keith hums, settling back against the car door, not once breaking his eyes from your face. he idly plays with his fingers when he says, “so i guess now isn’t a good time to kiss you, is it?”
“oh god, you didn’t just say that. that’s so gross. that’s so cheesy. you know what, give me a second. i’m turning the car around and we’re going right back to the police station, so officer friendly can-”
“you babble when you get nervous. are you nervous?”
you inhale, pursing your lips. after a minute, you say, “please don’t kiss me while i’m driving. you can wait till we get out the car.”
keith chuckles. “i think i can hold off for that long. but step on it a little bit, yeah? we’re on back roads. i think we’re safe to speed a little bit.”
you roll your eyes, stepping on the accelerator a little more nonetheless. “this is why you get arrested, keith.”
