I couldn’t break up the preview, it’s having me in tears writing it. So here is a full 1k preview.
Spoilers for character death from chapter 29 under cut:
””Penny for your thoughts?”
Keith turns from where he’s sat in front of the open window. The rain is coming down heavy, but it’s broken up by spattering on the large surfaces of the leaves outside. The nature is dense surrounding their bungalow. Keith has been watching the rain fall, enchanted, and safe from contact by the porch and roof in front.
Shiro is stepping with leisure towards him, two mugs in one hand, and the other a plate with sliced fruit. He’s fresh fro the shower and wrapped neatly in fluffy purple bathrobe. The soap and shampoo he used fills the air with the scent of sweet fruits not unlike the type hanging from the trees around them.
”Here, baby. Why don’t you eat? It’s been a long day.” He places the plate down on the windowsill. ”Oh, and look, they have this tea, I think you’ll like it. I asked around for something safe for a pregnant Galran and the woman pointed me to this. It’s not too unlike how coffee tastes.”
He takes the mug in both hands, kissing Shiro’s as it moves on its way to take a slice of the fruit.
”What’s a penny?” He sniffs the tea and lets the steam fill his nostrils and warm his face. It does remind him of coffee.
”Oh, it’s just a saying. You seemed deep in thought and- It’s something to say when we want to know what about.”
Keith hums and taps his finger nails along the ceramic of the mug. The clinking it produces is a strange comfort. It reminds him of the café back home.
”Kolivan.” He starts softly.
Shiro takes the wide, satelite dish chair by the couch and moves it next to Keith. He’s quiet, letting Keith think on what to say, how to say it, and Keith knows he couldn’t have married a better man.
”I miss him. I- He was more of a father than- than that man I’ve only just met. And I miss him. Shiro, I miss him.”
Shiro sets his mug down on the sil, Keith follows suit, and burrows his forehead into Shiro’s chest. He bites around the tears that pool fire-hot from his eyes. His hands grab mercilessly into the soft and plentiful fabric of Shiro’s robe. It’s a sob that moves into a scream. A scream of a wounded animal, pained beyond capability for cognition. It’s not loud, but it’s deep and guttural and wrenches his heart up through his esophagus and falls out through clenched teeth.
He closes his fists so tightly he can feel the tips of his fingers even through the fabric. He snarls through his sobbing.
Keith doesn’t really know where Shiro goes, mentally, or what he does, physically, because sorrow beyond his capacity to hold is drowning all else out. But for being stuck at sea, Shiro is, at he very least, the boat that keeps him from falling in the waters, and sinking to bottom.
”It’s.. It’s like something,” He pushes words through, but only just barely, ”like something’s gone away and I can never get it back. Shiro it’s- he’s gone. I can never, I can never go back. Shiro. He’s gone. And he died protecting me and I can’t help but feel it should have been-”
”Keith, no. Don’t you- don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
Keith’s grounded because Shiro is speaking through his own tears now.
”Keith, listen to me. Baby, please. Don’t ever- Don’t you dare ever...” Shiro’s hands roughly grab hold of his hair and he’s pulled out from the chair he’s sitting in, until he settles onto Shiro’s lap. It’s desperate. It’s lacking decorum and the usual gentleness with which Shiro handles him. But that’s how Keith knows that this time he’s the boat. There’s a storm raging wherever it is Shiro’s mind is, and Keith won’t let him fall in the water.
”I’m so glad you’re here, so glad you’re alive. You could have- I heard the story. They told me that he was going to kill you. Oh, baby, please. Please. Don’t. We love you. I- I love you.” Keith’s head is brought into the crook of Shiro’s neck as the man cries into Keith’s now messed up braid.
”Hey, Shiro. It’s ok. Don’t cry. I’m sorry. Just, please don’t cry.” He peppers kisses in staccato on Shiro’s neck, whereever he can reach within the tight grip of Shiro.
Shiro mutters things, unintelligebly, and with fervor.
Keith wants to breakdown even more, knowing his husband is gone. Gone far away from him in that moment. He’s gone to the parts of his mind plagued by the illness his capture wrought upon him.
If a storm wants to toss them in the waves, fine. But he won’t let a single drop of water so much as brush Shiro.
”I’m here.” He whispers and it causes Shiro to still. ”That’s it, it’s ok. I’m here. You have your hand in my hair. You always like my hair. You say it’s soft. Is it soft right now, Shiro?”
Keith feels the bob of Shiro’s adam’s apple as he swallows heavy.
His voice doesn’t come easy. ”Y..yes, it’s,” he clears his throat and loosens his grip around the hair, moving to pet it gently instead, ”it’s soft. I love your hair, baby.”
That word is a lifeline. Keith knows it’s amongst the collection of other orienting and grounding words that remind Shiro of what he has.
”I’m glad.” Keith chuckles small. ”Does it smell good? I used the hair oils you like so much. What exactly are the smells, again?” He asks, as if he hasn’t memorized it both in aroma and the words.
”Coconut, and lime, that’s the little green sour fruit, and, uh- oh. Yeah. Lavendar. Remember? That plant that reminds me of your eyes? And a hint of cinammon, cus you’re my little spicy boy.”
Shiro gently pushes Keith back and smiles, gazing soft into his eyes.
-The Reasons I Scream at Night, Chapter 36, Schrödinger’s Gold (WIP)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13199850/
Read the explicit one-shot side stories:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13744077/chapters/31581258
