okay give me 27 and sheith. make me cry.
27) things you said on the phone at 4 am
Shiro wakes up to the sound of his phone buzzing against the dark wood of his nightstand. He grabs for it without looking, and knocks his glasses off the edge and onto the floor. Shiro groans into his pillow, and his phone buzzes again, insistent.
“Okay,” he says, voice slurred from sleep. “Okay, hold on.”
His hand closes around the device and he draws his arm back into the cocoon of warmth beneath his duvet. It goes still just before he turns it over and Shiro sighs. The missed call notification flashes on his lock screen;
Missed call from Keith, 0345
Shiro blinks down at his phone. Why is Keith calling him at nearly four in the morning? Where is he calling from? A powerful spike of alarm brings Shiro to full wakefulness. Keith doesn’t call; he texted, he sent snaps, he left Shiro DMs with links to stupid tweets on Discord, but he never used to call before. Shiro’s mind helpfully supplies him with a whirlwind of catastrophe scenarios and Shiro grimaces, swiping his phone unlocked and calling Keith back.
Keith doesn’t pick up. His phone clicks over to voicemail after four rings and Shiro doesn’t bother leaving a message, just re-dials and reaches to turn the light on beside his bed. This time the phone goes to voicemail in the middle of a ring, which means Keith is alive enough to actively ignore Shiro’s call. Shiro sends him a text when he hangs up this time and drops his phone on his bed and reaches for a pair of sweats and the hoodie he took off before bed.
The phone buzzes again just as Shiro is tugging on a pair of socks and Shiro picks it up before the first set of vibrations has stopped.
“Keith!” Shiro says, a little more forcefully than intended and Keith giggles. Actually giggles. There’s so much noise in the background of Keith’s end; loud voices underscored by the thump of bass.
“Shiroooooooo,” Keith says, exuberant. A cheer goes up in the background of their call and Shiro sits down on his bed. There’s a sound like a door closing and then it’s quiet on Keith’s end. “Hey,” Keith says, voice soft.
“It’s four in the morning,” Shiro says. He tries to imbue his voice with sternness, but is waylaid by the yawn that cracks his jaw.
“Oh,” Keith answers, “sorry.” Shiro thinks he doesn’t sound very sorry.
“Did you need something?”
“Ah,” Keith hedges, and Shiro can see him rubbing the back of his neck like he does when he’s nervous.
“Keith, I have class at eight-thirty.”
“You do? Oh, shit, yeah, you do. I’m sorry, Shiro.” This time he does sound contrite and Shiro hums quietly in response. “I went to a party with Pidge’n’Lance,” Keith slurs, and then his voice drops into a conspiratorial whisper, “someone gave me three shots of tequila!”
“Do you need me to come get you?” Shiro asks, before he can tell himself not to.
“No, no, I’m fine. I’m in my Uber, we’re almost home.” Keith’s voice fades like he’s pulled his phone away from his mouth and Shiro hears a muffled conversation and then the slam of a car door. “I’m walking into my building right now, nothing to be worried about.”
“I’m glad you made it home safely,” Shiro says, listening as Keith fumbles with his keys and swears when he drops them.
“I wanted to hear your voice,” Keith says, tone light. Shiro hears the ding of an elevator door closing. Then, “I miss you, Shiro. So much. I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes, when I think about you.”
Shiro thinks that being flayed alive would probably be less painful than this. “Keith,” he says, trying to get a handle on the conversation before Keith says something he’ll regret in the morning. “You need to drink some water and take an aspirin and go to bed.”
“Why’d you let me leave you, Shiro?” Keith’s voice is plaintive on the phone. “We were so good. What happened?”
“You tell me,” Shiro says. There’s silence for a long time, and then the chime of the elevator hitting Keith’s floor. Keith still doesn’t speak but Shiro can hear him moving along the hallway. He hears the turn of the lock on Keith’s door and then the bang of it shutting behind Keith.
“I’m sorry, Shiro,” Keith says, and he sounds a lot more sober than he did fifteen minutes ago when he’d picked up the phone. “I shouldn’t have called.”
“It’s okay,” Shiro says, suddenly desperate to keep Keith on the phone. He lets himself fall back onto his bed, and stares up at the water-stained ceiling of his dorm bedroom. “I don’t mind. It’s good to hear from you.”
“It’s nice to hear your voice too,” Keith says, warmth bleeding through.
There’s another silence, and Shiro thinks about filling it, but he hears Keith’s intake of breath and hopes Keith will speak instead. He doesn’t. Shiro chews on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from jumping in.
Keith sighs. “I’m going to go to sleep now,” he says, “thanks for checking up on me.”
“It’s no problem,” Shiro says, surprised at how steady his voice is. “Sleep well, Keith.”
“‘Night, Shiro,” Keith says and the line goes dead. Shiro lets his phone drop beside his head and breathes in, counts to four and lets it out in a long woosh of air before he sits up and pulls his hoodie off and shucks his sweats. He plugs his phone back in and turns off the light, rolls over and wills himself back to sleep.
