Finally some slow dancing sheith; tried to keep it fluffy because god knows I don’t write enough of that. Also tried to keep it in character... I’ve been questioning the way I write these two for a little bit, so who knows? I enjoy writing them so I guess that’s what matters *shrugs*
“Yes, seriously,” Shiro answers, pulling the bottle of Olkarian spirits out from behind his back. “Or you don’t get any of this.”
Keith’s eyes dart from it, to Shiro’s face, to the music device in his other hand, and back to the bottle. The gears turning in his head are almost visible.
“How do you always know how to blackmail me?” Keith asks, sounding accusatory.
Shiro shrugs. “I just know.” He does, but he also knows that Keith is wound just as tight as the rest of them, in the face of their upcoming battle; it sinks over the horizon of Olkari while they all turn in for the night, only to rise again the next morning with renewed strength, a reminder as subtle as it is ignorable- which is to say, not at all.
Keith eyes the bottle again, arms crossed over his chest. “Fine. Okay. But I doubt I’ll do it right.”
Shiro grins at the victory and sets down the bottle to approach him, fidding with the music prism. “Don’t worry, half of it is improv anyway.” He finds the switch and flicks it on.
It prompts a frown from Shiro, and he clicks it off, then back on again, messes with the volume wheel, and pauses to frown just a little more. “Uh... Maybe it’s broken.”
“Are you going to sing?” Keith asks, amusement laced in his tone.
Shiro laughs nervously at the suggestion, pocketing the device instead. “I’m not... that into improv. We’ll just have to imagine the music.” He holds out his hand.
Keith’s smile drops again, and he chews on his lip in a clear internal conflict. Shiro just keeps his hand up and waits; Keith doesn’t rush into things, outside of the battlefield and training and the occasional prank war, so he knows it will just take a little bit for him to make up his mind, which is okay. They have time, no matter how little it seems to be.
“...just the one dance?” Keith asks, and then takes his hand when Shiro nods, glancing up at him with a lost, Now what? look.
“So you hold my left one like this,” Shiro adjusts their fingers, and Keith seems to relax a little bit. “And then you can put your left on my waist, or my shoulder, or-” He pauses when it slides up to his arm, right above the prosthetic, where the mangled skin can still pick up the warmth of Keith’s through Shiro’s shirt. “-there,” Keith must have taken off his gloves, without him noticing.
“That’s okay?” Keith asks, expression shifted from unsure to more worried, or maybe just a stronger mixture.
“Yeah,” Shiro is quick to reassure him, pushing aside the familiar longing gathering like clouds in his chest. This wasn’t meant to be a romantic gesture, not really, and treating it like one wasn’t fair to either of them.
Though the emotion that flickers over Keith’s face seems to run deeper than simple relief; or Shiro is just quicker than usual to entertain his imagination today.
“So my hand,” He lifts the prosthetic, letting it hover near Keith’s waist. “You can tell me where to put, if you want.”
Keith glances at it, seeming thoughtful, before saying, “Higher,”
It sounds like there’s an echo of a question there, so Shiro touches his side where he moved his hand, asking, “Does that feel right?”
Keith’s ears redden; he must have taken it as rejection, like Shiro was trying to guide him toward the right answer where he’d made a mistake. “I don’t- I haven’t-”
“It was just a question, Keith,” Shiro says, refraining from rolling his eyes, but unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. “I just want to know if it’s okay.”
He’s silent for a minute, refusing to meet his eyes like he doesn’t quite believe him. But, eventually, he glances up under furrowed brows and says again, “Higher.”
Shiro complies, hand drifting up over his ribs until Keith stops him. His fingers are curved around his side, palm close to Keith’s heart, and he scolds himself for thinking it was intentional, that Keith would pick a spot that seemed intimate-
“Maybe I will hum, just so we have a beat,” He says, bulldozing over his own thoughts.
“Can’t hurt,” Keith agrees, lifting one shoulder in a shrug, as Shiro starts to move his feet, in a simple box-waltz pattern that mostly everyone at the Garrison had learned for formals. The movement comes as naturally as the song, a gentle tune that he’s been recalling sporadically since their last fight with Zarkon- something random, but sweet. Fairly slow.
Keith moves with him, looking down at his feet mostly, muttering apologies every time he messes up. They die out soon enough- dancing is like that, after a while; mindless, as easy as breathing.
“I know what you’re doing,” Keith says, after a while. “Keeping me up here.”
“Oh?” Shiro pauses his humming, a nervous flutter in his stomach despite his self-proclaimed indifference.
“You want to talk about it.” Keith raises his eyes again briefly. “Tomorrow. What we have to do.”
“No, actually,” Shiro finds his feet stalling, frown rising to his face. “I was trying to get our minds off of it. But if you’d rather-”
“Oh,” Keith shakes his head immediately. “No, sorry. I just- I assumed.”
Shiro’s unease ebbs away- Keith could be lying, of course, and actually want to talk about the upcoming battle. Maybe he doesn’t know how to approach the subject, or now he thinks he’s been shot down-
“Shiro, it’s fine.” He interrupts his analysis. “Really. Just go back to humming.”
Shiro almost doesn’t; he almost pushes another question again, but Keith’s half smirk is genuine, like he’s the one who’s amused now, which, Shiro doesn’t want to put an end to.
So he goes back to humming, and the song ends just after the last of the sun has disappeared to the west. Keith is looking at him now, gaze unbroken like he’d forgotten how to look away, and Shiro fights to keep his own eyes from dropping under the intensity. Everything about Keith is intense- his will, his determination. It’s like staring at a bright star for too long.
“Do you want to stop?” Shiro asks, because they’d made a deal, and he wasn’t about to make Keith continue if he didn’t care to.
“Me neither,” He says, quiet, and maybe it was contradictory, looking back on it, to lean down and kiss him, because then everything stops- the swaying, the speaking. Maybe the war itself, for just a fraction of a moment.
He just barely touches their lips together, afraid of what might happen if he’s been misreading Keith this whole time, breath ghosting carefully over Keith’s skin like it makes the action any less intimate, any less obvious and undeniable. He’s a fool for thinking it, but can’t bring himself to pull away yet.
Keith’s exhale is warm against his, sounding like some semblance of his name is flowing through it like an undercurrent, but it’s lost to the kiss when Keith tilts his head closer, their noses brushing momentarily.
And Shiro thinks back to his previous thought; that Keith doesn’t rush things. It leads him to the conclusion that this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment, life-is-short kind of thing. Keith must have thought about this, maybe just as much as Shiro.
The other recollection is just as much of a relief- they have time.
Not much, but they have, at the very least, some time.
