If I die before I wake

by hiro (bioplast_hero)

Summary:

Shiro’s still not sure what to think of Westworld, but he feels this place getting under his skin more and more. Mostly this devastatingly beautiful outlaw he’s been riding with for at least a week—fleeing gunshots and arrows, fighting for their lives, bathing in rivers and sleeping out under the stars. It feels like freedom out this far. It also feels like a rope tightening round their necks.

Notes:

• For Neyasochi.

I was really, really inspired by Neyasochi’s fic, these violent delights, which is a fantastic Sheith Westworld AU. I actually never watched Westworld until her fic turned me on to it, then spent a week plowing through season 1 as fast as I could.

What was once a quick fic kind of took on a life of its own... 👀

Definitely some heavy tags so take care. It took me a while to figure an ending that felt true to this AU, but rest assured that I gave them a bright future together.

Enjoy! ^_^

Chapter 1

 

Shiro’s still not sure what to think of Westworld, but he feels this place getting under his skin more and more. Mostly this devastatingly beautiful outlaw he’s been riding with for at least a week—fleeing gunshots and arrows, fighting for their lives, bathing in rivers and sleeping out under the stars. It feels like freedom out this far. It also feels like a rope tightening round their necks. 

Shiro can’t stop staring at Keith, his ruddy tan and the crows feet at the corner of his eyes when he smiles in spite of himself. He’s hard and rough and breathtaking. But Shiro doesn’t approach Keith, won’t even look too long or step too close. He won’t ask that of him, though he knows he’s practically expected to. That’s why he won’t. It feels like taking advantage, or worse: that maybe it doesn’t matter if he does or doesn’t, because it isn’t real at all. No matter how real it feels. 

That’s not what they’re out here for, besides. Something has been calling Keith out this dusty road, beckoning with the promise of answers: about Keith’s past, about what his future can hold. 

Maybe Shiro can help Keith find what he’s looking for. Maybe he can help him break free. Then maybe, maybe this can be real.

 

+++

 

Sleeping on the hard earth for days and days is enough to make Shiro eager to rouse early and get back on the road. Then again, being jostled in the saddle from sunup to sundown makes him long for his dusty bedroll again. 

He doesn’t fuss about it, figuring he’ll get no sympathy from his traveling companion. He figures Keith only tolerates him because he’s still a decent shot since his active duty days, can manage his own horse, and doesn’t upset the easy silence that settles over them for miles and miles. 

Keith could figure no business reason, sordid or otherwise, as to why Shiro would go to the trouble to hitch himself to a wanted man. After that first day of trying, he seemed to decide this newcomer may be queer but wasn’t particularly a danger nor a liability, at least not in the near term. They’d made it through a few scrapes, Shiro proving himself useful, capable, and surprisingly quick to his aid. Loyal, even. After that, Keith’d shared a wild hare with him twice, and Shiro wondered if Keith was growing fond of the company. 

He’d started letting Shiro close the once-quarter-mile gap between their mounts as they rode, keeping each other in sight. Sometimes Keith would remark on something or other in their path; a wild sign, a bit of legend about the land. More if he was in particularly high spirits. And when the sun was setting red between the distant mesas, Keith would ride closer than that and ask Shiro a question or two. 

Where he’d been before this.

Where he’s intending to go, when this road ends.

Keith wrestles out from him that Shiro was an army man once, and his smile is incredulous and wry and a bit devastating. 

“You a law man, then? Out ‘ere with me?”

Shiro shakes his head slowly. “Not a law man. Just a soldier in someone else’s war.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. “Someone else’s?”

“Well it sure wasn’t mine.”

Keith hums, scanning the horizon for a moment, and then smirks darkly as he catches Shiro’s eyes again. “Soldier, then,” he smiles, and rides ahead without another word.

Shiro has to spur his horse hard to keep Keith in sight as he races down the hillside into the canyon stretched out before them. As the wind rushes through his hair, Shiro thinks he can hear his laugh, sounding wild and free.

Shiro grips the reins and tries to decide if his left grip aches more than his right. Moments like this, his thoughts wander to his bionic arm. It’s a casualty of war, of coming to a friend’s aid at the cost of his own flesh. The veneer of flesh-and-blood they gave him looks and feels just like the other, just like new, and running on the same technology as the hosts in the park. If it weren’t for the seam where the prosthetic meets the scar tissue of his natural arm, it’d be impossible to tell the difference with natural senses.

Shiro always liked that seam. They said they could fix it up to appear more natural, more integrated, but he replied that he liked a clear way of knowing where he ends and the machine begins.

That was before he actually met any of the so-called machines, before his first visit. Before he met Keith, and wondered for the first time whether there was a point where the programming ended and he began.

 

+++

Chapter 2

 

Near a week on, Keith ambles over to their campfire out of the darkness to check on the grouse he’s roasting. Shiro doesn’t really know how to cook, let alone knows the first thing about gutting his catch, but he tries not to let on. Keith doesn’t make a point of it, just quietly takes over when Shiro hesitates and doesn’t meet his eyes. 

It almost seems like the man enjoys having someone to look after, at least in some small way.

“What’re you out here for, Soldier?”

The question takes him by surprise, but it’s spoken kindly, almost fondly. Shiro likes the way Keith has taken to calling him soldier, a bit mocking but an endearment at the same time.

“I told you, I’m just along for the ride.”

Keith pauses carving up their dinner and points his hunting knife at Shiro across the fire. “I wanna believe you, but there’s something missin’. I don’t like being toyed with.” He takes a few more swipes at the meat before looking back up at Shiro. “Out with it.”

Shiro licks his lips. “Think the reason you feel I’m not being entirely truthful,” he answers quietly, “is I don’t know what to say that you will believe. Because you certainly won’t believe the truth.”

Keith blinks at him, angling his chin as he eyes Shiro up and down. “And what’s that?”

“I think I’m learning about myself out here, and… I think you know what that feels like. Impossible as that seems. I think we’re alike, somehow, despite how we’re different.”

His eyes flex wide for a moment, and then Keith laughs. Softly at first, and then louder. 

“What’s so funny?”

“You’s right, Shiro- I dunno how ya ‘spect me to take you seriously,” he sighs through the last shaking laughs.

“I- I guess I just thought, maybe, you’d understand,” Shiro murmurs. “S- sorry.” 

It comes out more sullen than he means it to, but he can’t help his disappointment. For a moment he really thought there could be an understanding between them, but he understand this, of course. The hosts aren’t supposed to process the things that would confuse them. Their programming treats it as nonsense, filling in the gaps. 

Keith’s eyeing him a bit skeptically, his expression more guarded than before. He skewers one breast of their meal and makes to hand him the knife by leaning across the fire. 

Shiro can’t help that his eyes are a bit wide, since he’s never seen that particular knife leave his person except to pierce a man at paces with impeccable aim. Otherwise it’s always secured at his back, ready. He carries it like a talisman, polishes it constantly. What it means to him, Shiro can’t guess. But he certainly never expected to be handed that knife like a piece of cutlery shared between friends.

Keith sees him hesitate and seems to rethink his impulse. In a blink, the knife is sunk an inch deep into the log where Shiro’s leaning, meat still on it. The blade nicked the muslin of his shirt where it grazed by his right arm.

Shiro just stays very still, eyes locked on Keith’s. It’s a challenge, a game Shiro’s not sure how to play. But he thinks that maybe he’s starting to know Keith, at least. It’s something.

After a few beats, Shiro reaches for the knife, pulls it clear of the stump and holds it up. He never drops Keith’s gaze.

“Always appreciate a home-cooked meal,” Shiro says kindly, with as much confidence as he can muster—or call it bravado, if you will. He takes a bite. It’s a little oily and a little dry, but it tastes good enough just for being hot and freshly-killed. The adrenaline coursing through him probably doesn’t hurt, either. 

“Compliments to the chef,” Shiro adds with a deferential nod. He really can’t help how fond his smile gets as he watches Keith suppress an echoing smile.

“You really are something else, Shiro,” Keith breathes. “I- I’ve never met anyone like you.”

There it is again. That ache in his chest, the awe of finding someone who understands him. Or, Shiro thinks he does. He thinks it’s what most folks would call love. And what else could love be, anyway, if it’s not this. Recognition. Seeing someone else at the center of their own story, cherishing it. Knowing you’d fight to protect it like it was your own. 

“I’ve been fighting my way through this life long as I can remember,” Keith says quietly. He’s looking at the flames, and his voice sounds almost like he could be speaking to himself. 

“I think back on it and, if I’m honest, I don’t understand the balance of it. Stealin’ whatever would fetch a worthy price, lining pockets o’men who frankly I’d prefer spill from navel to nose myself,” Keith says grimly. “I never knew what I was fighting for, but I wasn’t supposed to, I reckon, besides believing it to be the life I was born into.”

Keith is quiet a long time, his eyes half-closed such that Shiro could almost believe he’s dozed off. But he hasn’t.

“But I wasn’t- was I, Soldier?”

Shiro feels a shudder pass over him, though the night is still and there is no breeze. In fact, the air is warm and clings a bit more than feels natural at this hour.

“What do you mean?”

Keith just shakes his head, willing the thought away. “I guess I just hope there’s more to livin’ than just this. And that’s why I’m out here. There’s this… gnawing inside of me, that I’ll never find out what this life is for, what any of it means, lest I venture beyond what I’ve done. What I've known.”

“And sometimes, I have strange dreams. Vivid, life-like. An explosion. A night sky, consumed in fire. A spray of blood on the earth. And a face I’m not sure I’ve ever seen in this life, young with silver hair,” he trails off. His words are so hushed now, Shiro can hardly hear them over the crackling campfire. “I believed in God once, but, now—”

Shiro waits in silence, hoping he’ll finish his thought despite realizing he probably can’t. He’s reached the edge, where he can’t make sense of it further.

“Do you have many dreams like that, Keith?”

Keith shudders. “I have a lot of dreams.”

Without another word, Keith gets to his feet and shakes out his bedroll. He curls on his side with his back to the fire. Shiro knows he’s not asleep, not yet, but he’ll give him his privacy.

It’s not the first time Shiro wonders if Keith knows more than he’s supposed to, is more aware than he’s meant to be, but it is the first cold lick of dread.

But it’s not the only thought, the only feeling biting at him now. He picks a spot for his bedroll and stretches out under the stars, feeling guilty for wanting to know how Keith’s body would feel against his skin.

It’s lust, yes. And a deeper desire, to connect. To show him tenderness. To earn his trust, and be worthy of it.

And that’s what stops him cold, when the impulse tries to get the upper hand.

How can he start something he can't finish? If it can never be more... It would be cruel, and not just to Keith but to his own heart, too.

What were the chances of him finding someone like Keith? Shiro comes here with questions, and along comes a man who’s more than just easy on the eyes. More like purpose-built to his desires. A bespoke man who happens to be on a mysterious journey to find vague answers about what it all means.

Shiro doesn’t like to give much credit to happenstance in general, and he’s beyond doubtful there’s such a thing as chance in this place in specific. The writers probably have Shiro pegged, have his psych profile boiled down to the precise quest that’ll hook him in, and the exact man to lead it. All of it a lie. 

Or, the truth could be hidden here in plain sight.

So what if it’s a story Shiro’s following, with Keith towing him in—unwittingly, but the perfect lure all the same. The story itself, that’s part of the game too, if there is something more that's meant to stay hidden.

There’s something reassuring about saying it’s just a story, isn’t there? The fiction, it’s a boundary outlining the field of play. The simple reassurance of the rules, of what you think you know. It's the permission not to question too much the places where the answers start to get worn and threadbare. 

Shiro thinks of his scar, the line drawn between this and that. He thinks that’s the lie.

So maybe there wasn’t a point where the programming gave way to the man beneath—or where the man remade, rebuilt piece by piece became irredeemably machine. It really was all the same stuff. 

He breathes the thought into the night air with a sigh. What matters is whether you're awake, or you're not.

What turns your gears doesn’t determine that.

 

+++

Chapter 3

 

Keith rides ahead for the whole of the next day, and all of the day following. He's cagey and bristled-over and Shiro can't guess at what he's done to lose what rapport they had.

He waits until Shiro's not looking his way, then he watches him. Shiro feels it on his skin. It doesn't feel like danger, but it agitates.

Shiro turns from filling his waterskin and catches him in the act of one of those sharp looks. Keith does turn away, but only after a long moment of looking that lingers 'til Shiro's breath hitches. Keith's eyes are furious and raw, like a starving man. Shiro can't fathom what's going on in his mind.

"Keith?"

But he turns and sweeps himself up into the saddle, bolting on down the trail without looking back.

 

+++

 

Shiro finds himself trailing a mile after Keith into a lawless border town at sundown. Keith storms away from tying his horse without a single word, while Shiro gets them lodgings at the only place with any to offer: a well-used brothel in a farce of Spanish Colonial style.

As night falls, the narrow streets and dim overcrowded halls are filled with drinking and dancing and orgiastic sin. 

Shiro never thought himself a prude, but he’s on edge in a way that he knows has more to do with the sound of people fucking with abandon than it has anything to do with the general lawless disorder of being this far from Sweetwater. Disorder’s what’s greeted them in every town as they travel southwest, and he mostly prefers the dirt and the stars for that reason. But Pariah is different, darker. A touch more menacing and a lot more sad. Around every corner comes some unfortunate surprise and Shiro doesn’t know where to steer his eyes. He’d leave his gaze on the floorboards if that wouldn’t risk brushing into or tripping over some indisposed reveler.

When he finds him, Keith is sloppy and reeks of whiskey with a gnawing look in his rubbed-red eyes. His gaze is distant, unfocused. He misses Shiro standing right in front of him, turning a lazy circle and wandering off as though he doesn’t care which way he’s going so long as it's straight to the bottom. They haven’t known each other long, but Shiro’s never seen him like this.

Keith stumbles as he turns abruptly, feeling Shiro’s grip hard on his collar.

“What are you doing?”

Keith wobbles but gets his feet back under him somehow, shoving Shiro away. “Same as everyone’s here to do. Forget.” He practically spits the word. 

“By winding up in a ditch?”

“Can take care of myself,” Keith grumbles through a curtain of dark, wild hair. “What’s it to you if I do? Look at ‘hm,” he gestures vaguely at a rough-looking man who is humping the backside of a woman with a vacant expression, her raven hair not much longer than Keith’s. “Could be a good time—”

“—The hell?”

Keith aims to meet Shiro’s eyes, and sort of misses the mark in the way that only drink can induce. “Guarantee ‘e’ll give me a fuck first. Can tell he's not choosy.”

“Jesus,” Shiro curses. “That’s enough, you’re coming with me.”

Keith makes to resist but doesn’t have it in him. His breath huffs out loudly when he’s slung over Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro feels fists pummel his kidneys, just a few quick swipes, but not like he means it. It’d hurt a lot more if Keith meant it, even incoherent as he is, and that’s neverminding how he’s armed to the teeth. Shiro carries him easily up the stairs.

Keith’s dismal laugh catches his ears as he kicks open the door to their cheap room on the second floor. The walls are paper thin. There won’t be a wink of sleep to be had in this place, that’s for sure.

“Is’is what it takes for you to take a shine to me, now?” Keith slurs.

Shiro throws him down on the bed, scowling. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Just wonderin’ if you’ll bed me after all. Never thought you’d be the one. Figured you didn't have it in ya,” Keith says. It’s sour, mocking. Shiro’s tongue tastes like ash. 

“You like em sloppy, then, Soldier? Coulda sooner if I’d figured your type.”

Shiro takes a step back from the bed, involuntary, like he’s been slapped. He wants to run, not sure what scares him more: leaving Keith alone like this, or staying when Keith’s words are sharp as razor blades aimed for the chinks in his armor.

Keith’s expression slips a moment when he sees Shiro move back. It’s almost nothing, but it’s there—a flicker of disappointment, even sorrow. Shiro’s aching to know what it means that he’d look at him like that. 

Keith looks at the ceiling. “A good fuck’d do you good, ya know.”

Shiro glares. “How much whiskey’d you drink?”

“Enough,” his head lolls back on the pillow, hair splayed softly around his tanned face and shoulders. His shirt lacings are loose, exposing the long line of his throat where his skin is more pale where the sun can’t always reach.

“Well, it makes you mean,” Shiro mutters, half to himself. He doesn’t really think Keith’s listening. 

Because Keith is trailing his own hand down his chest, dragging against the course muslin of his shirt almost absentmindedly. The sight of it sparks along Shiro’s every nerve. As his fingers brush over his belt and down the dip of his hips hugged in tight breeches, his knees fall open, his legs parting. 

Shiro snaps his eyes back to Keith’s, but it’s too late. Keith just watched his eyes following his hand like a lure. 

“What are ya ‘fraid of, big guy?” Keith blinks at him, fingers sliding back up and dipping into his waistband almost casually, like it’s nothing. Easy as breathing. The tease is devastating, but it’s the look that undoes him. Lucid and soft and vulnerable, exactly the encouragement Shiro needs. But then, he knows that, doesn’t he? Or the software expects that, at least. Not real, not real. 

“Don’ worry,” Keith murmurs, his eyes going glassy the longer Shiro hesitates, “s’okay to pretend I’m somebody else.”

Shiro gapes at him. It’s hard enough to swallow his feelings, resist the pull to taste Keith’s mouth and feel the heat of his skin. To take what he wants, believe it’s on offer. It’s hard to resist, but he’ll manage. 

But he underestimated all the ways Keith can break his heart. This is something else, something bigger. 

“I- what?” Shiro stutters out eventually “No, that’s not- it’s not like that.” 

“Isn’t it? S’what everyone wants. Why all'is is here. The fantasy, right?”

“No,” Shiro’s eyes blow wide in the dim light. 

How can he be saying this? Hosts aren’t meant to say things like this, think things like this. There've been a hundred small things Keith has said to plant that seed of doubt, that nothing Shiro supposedly knows about this place can bear his full weight. But this... it’s too much to be borne.

Shiro moves without thinking, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. He just needs to be close, to hold Keith’s hand in his. 

“No, Keith, no. That’s not what I want,” he rubs his thumb over the fine bones and tendons of the back of Keith's hand, the effect so miraculous, so convincing, that he feels his heart quicken just from this. “I- I want it to be real.”

The pain in Keith’s eyes burns right through him. “Oh. Well, that explains it then. My mistake.”

Shiro shakes his head. This is all wrong. Wrong. 

“Explains what?”

“Why you don’ want me. Why you won' touch me,” Keith breathes out, long and low. “I’m not real.”

 

+++

Chapter 4

 

Shiro’s blood runs cold, his grip on Keith’s hand tense. “Why do you think you’re not real, Keith?”

Keith curls towards him, pulling Shiro in with a grip on his shirtsleeve until he can hear the man's heart beating and smell the whiskey on his breath.

“I’ve seen the other side,” Keith whispers conspiratorially at his ear. “I’ve met my maker.”

Keith turns his face to meet his eyes, and it’s all Shiro can do to stare back at him dumbly, holding very still.

“I’ve seen what’s inside this shell,” Keith thumps his chest angrily, his throat straining with tension even while he keeps his voice to a whisper, “and the strange tools they use to turn death into life. No tellin’ how many times, but I’ve died, Shiro. Ugly deaths. Shot for someone’s sport, filled with holes and caked with dust, then stitched back up so they can have another go tomorrow.”

Shiro can’t believe what he’s hearing. Hosts aren’t supposed to remember, lest they go mad from what they’ve seen. They aren’t supposed to know. But what if they could, what if they did? What if Keith is just the unlucky one that does?

“But you know what I think,” Keith pulls him even closer, wild eyes belying the careful hush in his voice. “Maybe the living’s the worse part.”

Keith lets up his grip on Shiro’s sleeve, and the loss of contact stings more than it should. His own hand is still covering one of Keith’s, and he twines their fingers just to try to keep him close.

Shiro can’t seem to catch his eyes now. Keith’s looking away, like he’s far, far away from here. He probably is.

“Why would you say that, Keith?”

He’s quiet a long time. At length, Keith takes a shuddering breath to reply and the sound it makes is like a whimper—barely heard, and yet so raw that Shiro’s sure the pain alone could kill. It sounds like surrender.

“Killin’ feels honest somehow, doesn’it? Even when the dyin’ is a lie.”

Shiro hates to think why he’s asking him this. Yes, Keith has seen him kill; Keith has killed, too, but it’s different somehow. Being the newcomer, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The one who holds all the cards.

Shiro thinks about all the death he’s brought in the past week or more. Guests kill hosts without consequence—and without an equal, mortal risk. He thinks the killing is at least as much of a lie.

Keith pulls him out of his reverie. “Just seems that living for someone’s sport is worse than dying that dusty death. Like... dyin’s more merciful than what they call loving.”

Loving. Is that what he meant to say, or his tongue tripping over too much drink?

Shiro can’t help the way he grips Keith’s fingers more tightly, how his thumb brushes Keith’s wrist tenderly. He doesn’t stop there, doesn’t want to stop. It’s useless to try, Shiro thinks, as his other hand slides up Keith’s arm to rest on his shoulder. He hopes his touch can be some comfort to him, at least. Ease his suffering.

“I’ve died a thousand times,” Keith whispers. “Just a few of ‘em I remember, though I reckon I’m not meant to have held onto even those.” Keith’s eyes flash to meet Shiro's, then skitter away. 

“Dying is as bad as it sounds, Shiro, and nothing hurts as much as believin’ myself in love with you.”

“—What?" Shiro's voice barely makes a sound, a weak puff of air. He swallows hard, trying again to voice a coherent thought while his heart riots. "Keith, I—”

“No, you listen,” Keith groans softly. “I get it- they’re in my head. I figure they wouldn’t go ta the trouble to make me take a shine to ya if you wasn’t on some quest of your own. Soldier, you said, a piece a'someone else's war. S'like that with me, but... more sordid. I’m- a tool, you know? A toy in a box,” Keith closes his eyes tightly then as his voice wavers, swallowing back tears.

"No," Shiro says through mounting panic, "not true. Never."

Keith doesn't even glare at him for arguing, too full of grief and pain. “I reckon you know what I am. My nature. The way you look at me, seems you’re always trying to decide whether you can trust what you see. Well I tell ya, you can’t. Don’ trust a damn thing in this world. Least of all me.”

“Keith- please—”

“I can’t give you something real 'cause that’s beyond me, s’not what I am, but... my heart, such that it is, it aches for you. My head’s full of you. I don' know what to do with either one, except follow you anywhere, until I do wind up in some ditch. Maybe if I go far enough, they’ll just leave me dead,” Keith gets wistful unexpectedly. “Has a certain appeal,” he laughs softly, before the pain seeps back into his eyes.

“But, Shiro...” he trails off, eyes closed.

“Yes?”

“I’d rather like to feel your hands on me ‘fore I die,” Keith swallows, looking out the window at the black nothing beyond the frame. “Supposin’ that’s not too much to ask a’you, that is. I- maybe I just wanna know what it’s like. 'Cause maybe it’s meant to be a lie, but it’s real enough to me.”

“Keith,” Shiro sighs his name and it comes out a moan, or a plea. “You’re real to me. So much it scares me.”

That draws Keith’s eyes back to him.

“I’m afraid, Keith. That means it’s real enough, doesn’t it? Could I be afraid if there wasn’t something to lose?”

“What are you ‘fraid of?”

“Losing you.”

Keith stares mutely, before he shrugs, his smile bleak. “They’ll stitch me right up, though. Ready for another go.”

“Not the same,” Shiro reaches to brush a thumb along his cheek. Keith’s hot to the touch and it seers like a brand. “You won’t know me. You’ll have changed me forever and I won’t have made the slightest impression on you.”

“Not true,” Keith swallows.

“So I’m terrified,” Shiro continues with a sigh. He feels a bit lighter just for saying it. “When you die, it matters. I could lose you in the blink of an eye.”

Keith gathers up Shiro’s bionic hand between both of his and holds it between their chests, strong and sure.

“Sorry for sayin’ those things. ‘Bout dying. Never was my aim to unsettle you, just. Well. I didn't see it mattered,” Keith swallowed. “If you cared about me, why wouldn’ya say?”

Shiro exhales slowly. “I can’t fix this. What they put you through out here, it's... a whole system, Keith. I’m powerless against it. I can’t decide if it’s better or even worse that you know.”

“Sure, but... that’s not really why,” Keith narrows his eyes, scrutinizing, “is it?”

“You- you deserve so much better, Keith.”

Keith’s eyes widen. “Better 'an you?” Shiro just nods mutely in response. “I’ve met plenty of folks. There’s no one kinder, no one better in this world than you.”

“But I’m not of your world. That’s my point. What does it mean to feel for you if I‘m a visitor on this road? You know what I mean by that. There’s no happy ending waiting. Just ruin.”

Keith slowly brings Shiro’s knuckles to his mouth, watching his eyes the whole time. It’s soft and chaste, hardly a brush of lips, but it wafts over him like the heat of a campfire. Shiro’s breath would catch at the sight alone, he’s sure of it, at the tenderness Keith doesn’t show anyone else.

Shiro flexes his bionic hand slightly in Keith’s grip. The sensation of his chapped lips is rich and full, both rough and soft. There’s the warmth of his breath, the raised callouses on his palm and the pads of his dry fingers. All the details of life fill his mind, all zinging along those artificial nerves. Same as what Keith's made of. More than anyone, Shiro should understand that it’s not what’s in his cells that makes him him. Sensation's the easy part. He decides what it means, what part of it matters. No one else decides that.

“What I feel for you, Keith, it’s real to me. So real. But how can it ever be enough?”

Keith’s answering smile is wry. “Maybe I’ve spent too long on this road, but I reckon I don’t believe much in those happy endings you worry your head about.”

Shiro frowns.

“Forget tomorrow, you hear me? Maybe this’is all we ever get. For once in your damn life, will ya just do what it is you feel?”

Shiro’s hand slides from Keith’s shoulder til he’s palming over the man’s heart, feeling his pulse race.

“What do you want," Keith rasps, a harsh whisper, "in your heart?”

“Wanna kiss you.”

Keith tilts his head. It’s more defiant than alluring, but of course it’s both. Layers, complexities, contradictions. And beneath the programming, the social psychology and a clever algorithm, Shiro believes Keith’s got spirit that animates him. He sees it in the fire behind his eyes.

“Then you kiss me, Soldier.”

 

+++

Chapter 5

Notes:

cw: there’s a bad injury in this chapter, definitely blood, and a little field medicine. Not too detailed, but it’s a harsh world. And isn’t the point that this place is more lifelike than it has any right to be?

 

Shiro feels his face heat with lust as he looks down on the man beneath him.

“I said kiss me,” Keith rumbles. “What more I gotta say?”

Shiro moves and it’s like drifting through water, slow and hazy. As he catches Keith’s lips, it’s a wave crashing over. He feels Keith’s back arch in wonder and pleasure, his breath sharp with drink. Shiro groans, holding Keith by the arms.

“Hell,” Keith pants against his lips. “Do it again.”

Shiro kisses him harder, deeper. He tastes Keith’s tongue and whines into his mouth at the feeling. He makes himself pull back, take a long look to find the certainty in Keith’s eyes.

“Don’t you dare stop now,” Keith shudders. “Don’t you leave me like this.”

“Won’t quit you,” Shiro murmurs. “Couldn’t if I tried. But sleep first—”

“—What?” Keith startles, eyes wide. Shiro wills the calm back into him with another kiss.

“I said sleep first. Want you to remember this.”

Keith eyes him harshly for a moment before his gaze softens. “I’ll remember,” he breathes. “No matter what happens to me, Shiro, I know I’ll remember you. Never been so sure of anythin’ as this.”

Shiro kisses his mouth, slowly and deeply, moving his kisses down along Keith’s jaw to his neck. He feels the flutter of Keith’s pulse against his tongue as he sucks a small mark into his sun-parched skin. He feels Keith’s chest and arms tense and release—little thrills of surprise, sighs of comfort.

With each kiss he lays on this man, something in Shiro’s core works itself loose turn by turn—until he feels it, really lets himself feel it. The awe, the wonder. The joy.

He returns to Keith’s face, watches breathless as his eyes flutter open. He smiles down at him then, a slow spreading smile that says more than he has words for. It’s a gift from the gods, watching an answering grin tug at Keith’s lips.

“Said I won’t quit you. I mean that. Just- sleep first, alright? I’ll hold you all night.”

A shadow lifts, one that’s hounded Keith always. He nods as he sighs into Shiro’s touch.

“Holdin’ sounds real nice.”

Shiro gives him a squeeze as he settles in beside him, turning him to hug his hips like they were made to fit.

The kiss he leaves in Keith’s hair is the softest one yet, and it’s his favorite.

 

+++

 

Shiro wakes when the first light is breaking. He's briefly stunned and awash in wonder at the long line of warmth that is Keith’s lithe body wrapped around his, Keith’s head on his shoulder, their limbs utterly tangled. 

That isn’t what quickens his heart though, not from the next moment on. There's too much quiet, and a distant sound of voices far too serious, and all of it together prickles Shiro’s awareness. He moves without thinking, going for his gun. 

Keith stirs, groggy for only a moment before his eyes harden. He senses it too. He checks for his knife, gets his gun belt back on. 

Keith nods to the door. Shiro shakes his head no, then eyes the window. It’s a risk, but everything here is. If it’ll give them a chance—

Keith cranes his neck to peer out the window, evaluating the climb down and the lack of cover from the main street in town. He looks back to Shiro shaking his head. Not pretty. 

Right, okay. So forward it is.

"Let's go."

Shiro leads, hearing hushed voices near the landing at the bottom of those stairs. They're light on their feet, moving quickly enough to make it around the corner and to the far end of that hall into parlor that's unlocked and, mercifully, empty. 

Shiro braces his shoulder against the door as Keith rushes to check those windows, looking for another way out.

"Servin' quarters there, kitchen's below. I can jump it," he gestures across the narrow ally to the adjoining building's wide open windows, "can you?"

A pair of shots down the hall and voices coming. They found them out of their rooms and now they'll be searching the place. It won't take but a minute to track them down, and Shiro's not about to watch Keith take a bullet from behind as they flee with no cover. He steels his nerves.

"That's your way, not mine," Shiro grunts out as he finishes loading his reserve sidearm. He'll need 'em both. "You go, I’ll draw their fire—”

“—Like hell you will,” comes an angry whisper back. 

“I won't die in here, Keith,” Shiro says, his voice dangerous and low. Keith’s eyes widen. “On some level you know that. You’ve seen it, the ones that won’t die. Gettin’ you out is what matters. You run, and when you’re clear, well. I’ll come find you.”

Keith swallows. He makes ready to argue, then doesn’t. He steps real close instead, eyes sharper than the dagger he carries. “You swear t’me?”

“On my life,” Shiro huffs a laugh at the irony of saying that. “For all that means.”

“It means plenty,” Keith rushes him, his palm grazing Shiro’s cheek roughly. “'Cause if I find you dead, I’m hauling you back to life just t’kill you myself.” Keith kisses him hard and it tears him open. Shiro's desperate to make him leave, now, while there's still a chance. He's just as desperate for him stay.

Keith captures his eyes again. “You’ve a promise to keep, Soldier.”

“And I mean to," Shiro groans out, his heart dancing a tarantella. "Just- go, Keith. Now. Get outta here.”

He goes. Shiro can see that he lands the jump, off and running. He holds his ground, counts the extra seconds it takes for El Lazo's men to try all the other doors before this one. Some part of him enjoys hearing them waste their rounds on other doors he's not hiding behind.

When the bronze knob turns, he's ready.

 

+++

 

When Keith finds him, he's alive as promised, but far worse off than he could've guessed.

Shiro took down countless men in his defiant stand, made it to his horse without much more than mean bruises and a few scrapes, but his aim took a dive when a lucky shot through his elbow forced him to switch his pistol to his left hand. 

Turns out his fancy prosthetic arm is just like the rest of the scenery in the park, in the eyes of a bullet or several. Never mind that all the blood he spilled was pumped fresh through his human heart.

"Fuck," Keith grits out as he pulls up beside him. He's got a strip of cotton hastily ripped from his own shirt and he knots it around his upper arm very roughly. He knots too more, even harder—pointedly so, Shiro thinks. Not that he's arguing; applying pressure, he supposes. Then Keith relieves him of his horse, now lame. He curses him the entire time. 

"I could kill you dead," Keith growls, his tears evaporating in the heat of his fury, "for lyin' to me! You gonna tell me is'okay 'cause your only half dead on your feet?" 

"Keith—"

"—You selfish, lyin' bastard- have you any idea what i'do to me, ta bury you?" Keith supports his weight almost too easily, maneuvering him until he's saddled behind Keith on his mount. He tucks Shiro's mangled arm between their bodies to secure it from swinging, wrapping Shiro's good arm around his waist to signal he'd better hold the fuck on.

Shiro sees stars as Keith spurs his horse, his head pounding with what blood he has left as they race through the scrublands surrounding Pariah, vanishing deeper into the bosom of the earth.

"If you do make it through this," Keith shouts over the wind after a few miles, "you best know you're at zero, you fucker. How am I 'spose ta trust you- sayin' bullets can't touch you, some heroic bullshit- then this—"

"—Keith, please. Didn't lie to you. I didn't know," he coughs then, tasting the grit he's caught in his mouth. Coughing saps his strength almost as much as yelling, and riding, and bleeding half his life away. 

Keith exhales, and Shiro feels it change something. He's not sure what it is, but Keith lets him be. 

"It's okay," Keith murmurs, his words hushed enough they're almost taken by the wind. "I got you."

 

+++

Chapter 6

Notes:

cw: Shiro's hurt and we've gotta deal with that. No gratuitous gore or anything, but more field medicine and a bit of body horror to pair with Keith's existential angst. Send Shiro some good healing energy.

 

Shiro wakes stretched out on his back in ruddy sand, along a bit of canyon he doesn't recognize. Not that he expects to, knowing they were pointed in the direction of the unknown. He's flat on his bedroll, mostly sheltered from the punishing sun by a bit of rock, fenced in by a few course shrubs struggling for a foothold in this world.

He shares his slice of shade with too many flies, giving him a bad feeling. His vision is spotty, his jaw aches with tension. His right shoulder is rigid with pain, but his arm—

—is gone. 

His arm is gone. 

Morosely, he thinks death is trailing him for sure. That's why he's here, on his back, alone. Waiting for death. He's coming apart, and Keith—

Keith. 

He raises his head to look but can't see far, hemmed in as he is. The heat is wicked already, and if he had to guess he'd say it's not yet noon.

Distantly, he hopes Keith had the sense to leave him behind. Keith is practical, a survivor, and certainly knows how to spot a lost cause like himself. He hopes that he has gone, and that he hasn't. Shiro knows he gets only one death, mercifully, but he doesn't relish the thought of dying alone.

Shiro hears footsteps. He doesn't even make to move or defend himself. He can't, so he doesn't. He just waits. 

It's Keith's eyes he meets when a tall shadow falls over his face. 

"Shiro?" Keith moves quickly to crouch by his side, blocking more of the sun. "Shiro, you're awake. Hell," he coughs a laugh, "guess I won't have to kill ya after all." He's light with laughter, almost manic. He moves to support the back of Shiro's head, tipping a bit of water into his mouth. He does it twice more before putting the skin away. "Ya really scared me."

"I'm sorry," Shiro croaks in reply. His head swims as he tries to form his most pressing thought into words.

"Am I- dying, Keith?"

Keith eyes the stump of his arm, wrapped tightly in fabric from who-knows-where. It's not like they have that many clothes between them. 

"Naw, I don’ think so. Not anymore. Rest now."

 

+++

 

Shiro blinks awake a second time, finding Keith sitting close by his side against red rock, hat low on his face. He thinks it's a different rock in a different spot, but the sand is the same. He thinks he hears water flowing nearby. He licks his lips.

“How long was I out?” His voice is rough from disuse.

Keith sees him then. He holds the waterskin for him, dribbling into his mouth. “Just now? Some hours, half a day. The first time, 'bout two days since Pariah.”

“Jesus,” Shiro curses. 

“Risen from the dead, eh?” Keith tries chuckling at his joke, but his heart isn’t in it. He wipes a drop from Shiro's lips with a calloused finger. "No, guess that'd be three days. I knew my scriptures, once."

Keith moves around him then, pulling off Shiro’s boots. Unbuckles his belt too, leaving it all where it falls in the sand. Keith's boots and belt and hat are quick to follow.

“Come ‘ere."

Keith sits him up and drapes him over his back where he crouches. He stands, hauling Shiro up by his good shoulder. Shiro bites back the pain until all that's left of it is a sort of muffled groan. He doesn't plan to make this any harder than need be, what with all that Keith's doing for him.

“Where’re we going?” Shiro manages after a few shaky breaths.

A small laugh escapes Keith's chest. “You could use a bath.”

Shiro really can’t see how he has blood to spare for blushing, but he feels it come on just the same.

Keith carries him to the edge of the river. “Don’ figure you can stand now, can you?”

Shiro thinks it over. “No.”

So Keith carries him in, clothes and all. 

He settles him waist-deep in the shallows between sandbars where the water is sun-warmed, taking most of the chill from it. Once he’s sure Shiro can sit a moment without tipping back, he starts unlacing his breeches and working them off. 

It’s work to undress him, clothes wet and clinging, body too weak to offer assistance. It’s slow but Keith is dedicated. He takes his time, inspecting each facet of him for injuries he might not’ve known about, rubbing his skin free of grime with palmfuls of river water and his own shirt sleeve. 

Keith finds a lot of scars, tracing the outline of an impressive one over his hip. He does it almost worshipfully, like he means to pull the story, his history, from the marks left on his skin. Shiro's torso is peppered with curious bruises from the bullets that didn’t pierce him. Keith frowns. 

He moves especially slow as he works Shiro’s shirt up around the sodden bandages clinging tightly to the stump of arm he has left. When he works the sleeve free, Shiro thinks he sees Keith breath easier. 

Balling up Shiro’s clothes, he tosses them aside to be scrubbed properly, wrung out and dried in the sun.

Then he moves by Shiro’s side, tips him back against the sandy bank with his right side propped up out of the water against Keith’s thighs. It's a bit awkward but it works to keep the wound dry. 

Shiro’s thoughts drift and linger and pool at every touch, letting Keith’s care sink into his skin. His fingers press, his nails graze, his palms sweep over muscles and work into the tension that's twisted up between his ribs, until he's breathless from it all. It’s a kindness Shiro doesn’t think he deserves, but for Keith's sake he tries to accept it with grace. It's miraculous, wrenching helpless sighs of gratitude from his lungs.

“What hurts?”

Shiro blinks up at him. “Aside from everything?” Shiro‘s shaky laugh is a bit teasing, and he sees Keith’s spirits lighten from feeling the shift in his mood. In truth, he’s feeling less like death, more like his body’s decided to live through this one.

“Feels good, Keith,” he sighs. “I think you’re too good to me.”

The frown returns, Keith avoiding his eyes. Instead, he gestures to the bandages. “Not sure you’s ready to see, but I gotta change this.”

“It’s okay. Go ahead,” Shiro swallows, tipping his head back. He's more interested in the look in Keith's eyes than in his wound. “Will you tell me what happened? After I was out,” Shiro’s voice trails away.

Keith's eyes flicker to his, then back down to where he's working a knot loose. “Was going south quick. Cold and ghastly. Was afraid it'd spread, I- had to cut it free from you.”

Shiro just nods. He wants to thank him, and he will, but figures Keith’s got more to say. 

“Never seen quite so much of the inside of us,” Keith swallows hard.

Shiro hisses through the pain as the bandage sticks while Keith is pulling it free. Breathe. He tries instead to imagine what makes a man like Keith go pale. He knows it isn't blood or sinew or bone that does it. Keith knows about those things. But the inner workings of his prosthetic, well. Is it that it's mechanical, robotic? Or that the machine bleeds the same as anyone else?

"Thought I'd seen enough, wakin' up on the other side. Saw where they patch us up. But cuttin' into you- hell. Now I really have seen it all."

"I'm sorry," he answers quietly. "You shouldn't have had to see something like that. Any of it."

Keith's already tying fresh bandages, his fingers quick and precise and skilled for the work. He's focused, intense in a way he wasn't while he washed his body clean.

"A bit of gristle ain't the problem, though," Keith sighs, a little broken sound. "Don't you see? I- I guess you tried to tell me we was alike- and I hated you for it, then, but- felt sure you meant it some other way. Any other way than this."

Shiro's head is swimming. Keith's hands return to washing him in long, soothing strokes over his chest, collarbones and neck as his head rests in wet sand. But there's something desperate in the way Keith's hands are moving on him, deeper than before.

"Keith, please- sorry, I'm not understanding—"

The words die in his mouth, lodged there as he finds tear tracks streaking Keith's face.

“You knew," Keith cries, "what- what I am, but- but you- didn't know you was like me? Not 'til this?"

Shiro gapes at him, pushing hard to fit the pieces together.

“Bloody hell,” Keith scrubs his own face with his hand, his features twisting with pain, “no- no, I’d rather think of you free, gone beyond this place- where I can’t follow, if you must. So be it. Don' wanna lose you, but I took comfort in it, really. That your life was yours."

Didn't know you was like me-

Saw where they patch us up-

"When you said you was powerless, Soldier, I never thought—”

Never seen quite so much-

Inside of us-

Us-

“Hey, hey, Keith," Shiro cuts him off with a whine, "You got the wrong idea, okay? I’m human- I mean, I was born, not made. My arm was- replaced, if you can imagine. But only that. I'm sorry, I- god, I'm so stupid. I didn't think how you'd see it."

Keith regards him harshly through a tangle of bangs, his eyes red and raw.

"I know what I saw, Shiro. Your p-parts, drippin' your blood. Now how's that possible?"

Shiro shakes his head. "Same way you're possible, Keith. Same miracle as you are."

"Don' sweet talk me, you asshole," Keith grumbles, but it only makes Shiro's mouth curve in the start of a smile. He gets an idea.

"Here, have a look," Shiro looks down at the bandage. Keith follows his eyes with his hands, holding his stump of a limb in view for them both. "See, there. Just below your knots. The scar, it reaches all the way around. That's where the machine ends and I begin—or that's the story I've taken to telling myself." 

Keith's eyes widen as he studies the spot. He traces the edge with the tips of his fingers.

"When I lost my arm in the war, I already had a stake in this place. It's sort of... in the family," Shiro admits carefully. He doesn't want to talk about the business of it, especially not knowing what he knows now. "The arm, it was a replacement. A real convincing one. Made the same as you are, but mine's run on a human heart.”

He thinks he sees Keith mouth the word soldier, but doesn't hear it except with his heart. It's wondrous, seeing the shadow of grief lift from Keith's face again, one shade at a time. Keith moves, cupping Shiro's cheek in one hand. 

“So you are real, thank heavens,” he gasps.

“Real,” Shiro breathes. He wants so badly to reach for him, pull him close, but it's beyond him. He's so weak he can hardly move, except to lean into Keith's palm like it's everything. “I told you- you're real to me." 

The little pinch between Keith's brows tells Shiro he's still skeptical of that.

But it's important. Were he to die tomorrow, he needs to know Keith understood at least this.

“Listen. Who’s to say you’re not real, even made of gears, hm?"

Keith is quiet as he shifts him down a bit in the water until he can scrub Shiro's hair. The slightly cool dunk feels almost as good as Keith's fingers firmly working against his scalp. He closes his eyes as he grasps for the words he needs.

“You remembered I was saying we’re the same, but I didn't mean what we're made of. I meant, well," Shiro struggles for the words, "that you’re self-aware, conscious. Awake.”

“Uh- awake?”

Shiro nods. “That your mind has the ability to become free. That potential, it isn’t made, Keith. It’s born in you.”

"Oh."

"Oh?" Shiro opens his eyes again as Keith settles him back against the bank, higher up its slope than before where his bandages will stay dry. Keith studies him.

"Just, you soundin’ surprised o’er it."

"Well, I am, a little!" Shiro laughs gently. "It was the first thing I noticed about you, something I felt. But this place lies so well, I couldn't be sure."

Keith leans over him, sunlight scattering off the water's surface and dancing over his skin. He reaches out and finger-combs Shiro's hair for him until he's satisfied with the way it falls, the way Shiro likes it. It's unexpected, and Shiro's heart pangs with tenderness at the way Keith looks after him even without thinking. 

"I couldn't trust it," Shiro swallows, "couldn't be sure, until- until you told me that you know. What you’ve seen. Even how cruel this world is."

Keith’s brow creases unhappily. "What does that prove?"

"That you're awake- alive, Keith. And that you're brave. Knowing everything you know, you're afraid but you also have hope."

Keith's eyes slip to his mouth and the movement thrills along Shiro’s nerves.

"And you want, don't you? Desire. To know, to feel. Despite everything. I- I can't imagine," Shiro sighs.

Keith's eyes flicker up to his before once again sliding over his parted lips. "Haven't changed my mind, you know."

"Neither have I, Keith."

And he's right there, dipping down until his lips catch Shiro's in a kiss so sweet he can hardly take hold of it. Boneless in Keith's hold, he feels Keith explore his lower lip with his tongue. He's seeing stars as Keith slips his tongue inside, seeking his.

The moan that simmers out of him takes them both by surprise, the yearning in it. It could be pain, but they both see that it's not. Keith's eyes are hooded when he meets Shiro's gaze.

"I been kissed before, my memory tells, but," Keith breathes a laugh against his lips, "reckon it's a fiction like the rest. Maybe it never happened."

"Maybe."

"No one's ever kissed me like they meant it. I know that much. Only you."

"I mean it," Shiro whispers. "You know I do."

He hears Keith's smile more than sees it, the small, sweet crack of lips parting at the corners. He feels Keith's nose drag for a moment along his cheek.

"Yeah, I do."

Keith pulls back slowly, sweeping his hands down the plane of Shiro's chest. He glances aside towards where the river is at it's fullest, then finds Shiro's eyes again. "You good here for a second? Warm enough?"

"Yeah," Shiro exhales, feeling exhaustion lapping at his mind again. "The water's good. Soothing."

Keith’s gaze is fond. "Kay, you rest. Be right back for you," he rises dripping to his feet and steps away. Peeling his wet clothes off quickly, Keith hefts them aside and moves off into a deeper part of the river.

Keith moves with a purpose, coiled and quick. He dives into the river head-first, and Shiro feels a tug of anxiety at watching him vanish. Shiro focuses on his breath. 

Hidden from sight, Keith takes his time. He surfaces several slow breaths later, tossing and shaking his mess of black hair like a wet animal. It's not the first bath Keith's taken with Shiro around, but it's the first time he allows himself more than a guilty glance.

The man is gorgeous, startlingly so. All lean muscle from rough living, corded back, trim waist. The lightly tanned skin of his shoulders and back giving way to the pale curve of his ass and long, sculpted legs vanishing where the river now laps at the backs of his thighs. 

Keith turns to look back his way, the sun glinting off of him spectacularly. Real, Shiro reminds himself, briefly shaken by the wonderment of seeing him like this. He's a vision, and he's alive.

Alive, and looking at him like a wild animal, hungry, impatient. Keith drags his fingers up through his mess of black hair, tossing it from his eyes briefly. It's clinging to his shoulders, finding its echo in the spray of hair matted at the join of his thighs.

Shiro blinks. He knows he's staring, but god he wants to. As Keith stalks closer, water running off his skin in a way Shiro helplessly wants to catch in his mouth, well- he thinks Keith wants him to be looking, too.

"Sure know how ta make a man blush, Soldier," Keith calls to him in a throaty voice as he approaches, and it's true. The blush is beautiful, as ravishing as the rest of him. "Careful, I think you need all the blood you got for your head," Keith gestures toward Shiro's lap with a hint of amusement quirking his brow.

"Shit," Shiro mutters, seeing how his body is responding to the sight of Keith's, naked and shining.

"Don' mind," Keith answers huskily, "just surprisin' you have 'nuf steam, is all."

Shiro's laugh is thin, desperate. "Can't help what you do to me."

"Is that so?"

Shiro can only nod, not trusting his voice or the sounds that will likely spill from him in the moment if he gives them a way out. He's always been careful, deliberate. He wants to do this right, to take care of Keith properly, like he deserves.

But he is human, after all. Just a man.

Keith's eyes sparkle. "What would you have me do to you?" 

Shiro's lips part, his answer taking shape, surprising even himself. He's fully hard now and straining, but it's secondary to the straining of his heart. He loves this man. Loves him. He'll give him everything.

"Keith- I—"

Keith seems to remember himself then.

"Shit, Shiro. You need ta save your strength."

Shiro swallows. It's true, he can't take care of Keith the way he wants to, not like this. But this man deserves to know what's in his heart, doesn't he? Shiro imagines it can be some comfort to him, until they can satisfy each other properly. 

"I—"

"Please, Soldier. Save it. There'll be time," Keith smiles gently. "I'll make sure of that."

 

+++

Chapter 7

Notes:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KEITH!

I had to make this fic one chapter longer (again), because I'm a masochist and I'm not done hurting, apparently.

cw: hardly explicit, that's really not the point of this fic, but I guess Keith wanted a bj for his birthday, and these boys deserve a moment of peace.

 

It takes time for Shiro to feel his strength return to something like fullness. Days roll on, traveling only as far as Shiro and their one horse can manage without strain. They’re shorter days than before, but it’s enough for the threat of El Lazo and his men to fall away behind them. 

They skirt the edge of an unforgiving patch of desert, finding it necessary to shelter by day, riding across sections of wasteland by night. It seems there’s no one out this far, not a soul for days.

When they again reach canyons filled with water and the stuff of life, it’s a balm they both need. Chest pressed long against the smaller man’s spine, Shiro imagines he feels Keith breathe easier with each passing mile. Thinks he stands taller, too, each time Shiro manages a little more by himself, his condition rounding the bend and taking a steady climb. 

And Shiro’s adaptable. Once he solved the puzzle of mounting their horse unaided with one arm, by the second or third go he felt he’d about mastered it—though he does have to mount first so he can throw his weight around just so, causing their horse to skitter a bit more than should be necessary. He blushes every time he startles their mount, ever his own worst critic, but Keith does him the kindness of taking no notice.

Keith’s also adaptable, Shiro finds, as the ever-wary outlaw scoots in close to hold him or be held at night. The man didn’t used to crack a smile half so much in a week as he now seems to in the passage of a single day. 

Shiro catalogs the varied almost-smiles that tug at Keith’s lips and crease the corners of his eyes. 

And Keith finds every glint of an occasion to touch Shiro in some small way. There are many and varied opportunities presented along Shiro’s march back to health, though that isn’t why he does it. And maybe that’s why it’s easy to let Keith help, knowing Keith needs this as much as he does, maybe more.

It’s more than that, Shiro knows. There’s an understanding between them. When war took his arm the first time, Shiro had felt like half a man—felt that way far longer than it took to replace the limb. The pity, the simpering. He locked away his anger, let it cool and fade with time, but some of the old resentment lay within him still. 

Here Keith helps him, near constantly at first. Shiro never asks for a hand, and never has to do more than make one move for himself for Keith to leave him to struggle at it alone without comment. Keith just looks at him and sees which it’ll be. It’s overwhelming, the love in this. And as those midnight eyes silently delight in Shiro’s successes, his winning back control day by day, Shiro thinks being seen helps heal him more than anything else could.

 

+++

 

Storms ride up behind them the third afternoon, the first of the coming season. When it rains out here, Keith knows how it’ll sluice off the land and tear through the valley they’ve been following. They make for higher ground, tasting the minerals in the air.

Just in time, too. They’ve hardly crested the first rise when a peel of thunder startles their mount, but she’s sure-footed and Keith is quick to steady her. He urges her quickly on, scanning their route intently as the sky darkens. He finds them a bit of shelter under an overhang in the red rock wall just as the first brush of rain reaches them. 

It’s not a heavy rain, not yet, but it doesn’t take much for the water falling over miles to whip itself into a torrent that rushes through the canyon below. 

Shiro looks on in awe as the water rises over the trail they’d been on.

“Isn’t that something,” Shiro mutters.

A crack of lightning lances through the sky, flashing brightly off the canyon walls even in the lingering light of the afternoon. 

Some idle comment on his tongue, Shiro turns to find Keith.

He’s standing a couple paces away, looking at Shiro with such naked want that he’s struck with it, cracked open by it, the way the lightning opens up the sky.

Keith’s eyes are darker than Shiro has ever seen them, hooded and slow-moving as they trace the lines of Shiro’s chest, neck, lips. Breath escapes him, his pulse a runaway train. But still Keith doesn’t move, like he’s caught between desire and restraint. From the visible tremor in his muscles, Shiro guesses at which is winning.

Shiro moves first.

He goes to him urgently, like it can’t wait. It can’t. Keith’s name spills from his mouth and gets lost in the clashing of their lips.

Keith’s skin is salty from riding in relentless sun, his body a line of heat against his as Shiro pulls him close in a one-armed hold. Keith’s grip on Shiro’s hips is enough to bruise, and he welcomes it.

“Want you, Keith,” Shiro gasps between hard kisses, “so fucking much.”

“Shiro,” Keith whines, pulse thundering, “please—”

I’d rather like to feel your hands on me ‘fore I die.

The memory tears through Shiro’s mind. Mere days ago feels like a lifetime and its been nearly a week, but Shiro will never forget what Keith said that night when he was drunk enough to let his pain show.

“Tell me what you want, Keith,” Shiro breathes at his ear before sucking a deep mark below the corner of his jaw. He’s still pulling fiercely at the spot, gripping Keith hard around the back as he arches into the sting, when Keith stutters his answer.

“I- w-want everything, nghn, Shiro- fuck—”

Shiro’s yanking roughly at Keith’s belt, deftly discarding it while Keith shrugs out of his jacket and rips his own shirt off overhead. He yanks Shiro’s shirt free from his belt before sliding his hands up the planes of Shiro’s muscled stomach. Shiro moans in rapture. Keith’s hands are sparking electricity over Shiro’s body, overwhelmed as he is by the feeling and the knowledge that Keith wants him like this, wants this as much as he does. 

Maybe I just wanna know what it’s like.

“Lemme get this off you,” Keith groans, raising his shirt in a firm but careful grip. “Please,” Keith pants, all but begging for Shiro to let go of his breeches and hurry up raising his arm to help him. Keith’s restraint in this is almost comical, given how he could’ve torn his own shirt in two in his haste to be rid of it a moment ago, but this is entirely for Shiro’s benefit and there’s no surprise in that. 

Shiro sighs heavily as Keith presses into his chest, skin to skin. 

It’s a sweaty rain in the heat of the day. It barely takes the edge off the heat, adding electricity to the mix. Shiro’s grip on his body slips in the wetness of his skin.

Maybe it’s meant to be a lie, but it’s real enough to me.

“Tell me what you want,” Shiro reminds him. His voice is low but demanding. He has to hear it- has to know—

Keith growls, “Isn’t obvious to ya?”

Shiro wrenches the words from where they lodged when they first wounded Shiro’s heart. 

I’m- a tool, ya know? A toy in a box.

No. It will never be like that between them. It will never be like that for Keith ever again.

“No- Keith,” Shiro catches his cheek in the palm of his hand, just a whisper of space held between them. “I wanna hear it from you,” he sighs against Keith’s lips, laying sweet kisses there. “What you want. What you need," he murmurs, smoothing his hands down Keith’s sides, thrilling over his ribs. “Matters to me.” 

Over the thrumming rain there comes a little suck of air, hollow and surprised, from Keith’s throat. It’s all Shiro needs to know he’s gotten through as he pulls back to meet his eyes. 

“What I want.”

“Yes, yes,” Shiro kisses him more hungrily, lips lingering at the heated brush of Keith’s tongue seeking his. “Mm yes, please,” Shiro moans softly at the intrusion. “Want you chasing your pleasure, Keith- showing me how.” 

A look washes over Keith then, something like awe. It's the rawness of Shiro's words, the naked yearning. He shakes his head, disbelieving. “You’re a strange one, Shiro.”

“Guess so,” he laughs against Keith’s lips.

“Where’d you come by these funny ideas?” 

“Don’t see what’s funny about them. Doesn’t every man want to please his lover?”

“No,” Keith exhales, “you’re more rare than you know.”

“Wanna know you—”

“Then touch me, Soldier. I been achin’ for you,” Keith’s eyes are sparkling when he reaches for Shiro’s wrist, trailing the hand down, down his body until he’s cupping the bulge of Keith’s arousal through his britches where the laces already hang loose. Shiro’s breath catches, all the more as Keith bucks helplessly into the slightest touch. “Fallin’ asleep thinking ‘bout your hands and- and your- mouth,” Keith pants.

Shiro backs him up against the wall now, stroking at his hardness. “Please- do you want me to taste you, Keith?” he kisses his way down Keith’s chest, going to his knees.

Breathy sounds escape Keith’s lungs, trembling lips mouthing yes without air left to carry the words. Shiro marvels at the weight of him, fine and perfect in his hand.

Keith keens, loud and long, as he breaches Shiro’s mouth.

Shiro suckles the tip teasingly and then laves over his length with his tongue, leaving him sloppy and pulsing with want. A string of incoherently moaned words slips from Keith’s lips as his hips stutter helplessly in Shiro’s hold. Shiro hardly hears the words as he sighs them into the breeze, the occasional thunder rumbling louder than before, the rain coming down harder. 

“Keith,” he sighs, “ngh- Keith,” and it builds into a chant, the name falling from Shiro’s lips like the incessant rain between licks that drive Keith to distraction.

Keith’s fingers tangle in his hair, subtly pulling. It’s almost nothing at first, then a stronger pull, enough to show Shiro what he needs. He swallows Keith all the way down. 

It startles a curse from Keith’s throat, the sound just as delicious as the taste of him. Shiro keens as he pulls at Keith’s hips, begging him to thrust into his throat. 

And he does. He really does.

When he comes, Shiro swallows it down profoundly, with reverence. Like communion. He wonders vaguely at the comparison, of bread that is flesh and isn’t. Keith sure tastes like a man does.

He looks up at Keith from his knees as he laps up the last drops, sliding off gently. Keith’s eyes are blown and bleary, and he’s unsteady on his feet. Shiro wants to carry him, to lay him out on the cave floor—he still could manage it, even with one arm. Keith will only find it unnecessary, and reckless of him while his body heals. 

Instead, he helps Keith out of his boots so they can leave the rest of his clothes where they fall. Shiro nudges Keith into his side as he stands, tucks him close under his healthy arm, and leads the way to a hastily dropped bedroll. The rain is letting up and though the day is later it’s still warm out, the air thick in a way the desert rarely feels.

Stretched out naked under Shiro’s weight, Keith blinks at him. “To think you was holdin’ out on me all this time.”

Shiro startles, taking an extra moment to be sure of the teasing in Keith’s voice before he narrows his eyes.

“Hey now,” Shiro says, though he fails to hold his glare for even a second. The sight of Keith pleased and pleasured beneath him melts away his defenses. “Not holding out on you. Quite the opposite. Falling, day by day.”

It’s Keith’s turn to startle, eyes wide and dark as nebulas. “Falling?”

“I am in love with you, Keith.”

The look on Keith’s face is many things at once, each of them about the last thing Shiro expects to see.

“Y- you can’t be serious.” Doubt.

“Of course I’m serious,” Shiro says, his voice firm. “I mean it.”

“But you… can’t.” Fear.

“Why not, Keith?” Shiro demands. “I’m as sure of this as anything I’ve ever known.”

“No. No, don’t.” Pain. 

Shiro doesn’t know what he expected. But it wasn’t this.

 

+++

Chapter 8

“Keith, please.”

“No,” he pulls out of Shiro’s hold, naked as the day he was- made. “I never should’ve let—”

“Stop, Keith,” Shiro’s voice is stern. “Don’t run from this.”

Keith glares at him. “I should,” Keith’s eyes slide scathingly over his ruined arm, “since you won’t. Hell, you can’t stay here.”

“What’s stopping me?”

“Don’ toy with me,” he spits. Shiro hates the word toy in Keith’s mouth. He slides closer, reaching. His fingers brush Keith’s knee.

“I'd never, Keith. I'm not leaving you here.”

Keith wilts visibly. "Imma dead end, Soldier. You can’t save me.”

Shiro's grip is crushing when he captures Keith's wrist. “Watch me,” he growls. “I will never give up on you. I’m getting you out.”

“Out,” Keith breathes, alarmed. Then he laughs, dark and sad as he brings a hand to Shiro's chest. “There’s no out, not for me. Figured you knew. I leave," Keith makes a gesture like an explosion with his free hand, "an' my life ends in a hellfire that even my maker can't fix—”

“Listen to me,” Shiro says, eyes dark as the storm that swept down the canyon on their heels. “That’s what they want you to think. But there is a way.”

Keith's gaze slides to his and holds on, like he has no other anchor in this world. Like Shiro is that and more. Keith's look says all that he can't. That he hasn't the first idea why he believes Shiro now, but he does. He does.

“H- how do you know that?”

 

+++

 

They’re still following that tug Keith feels in his gut, urging him on to a place where these canyons bottom out, emptying into the sea. It’s a place he remembers only distantly—in the way that he seems to recall the things he’s supposed to forget. Close now.

Sometimes, carefully, Shiro asks him to remember.

“What’s out here, Keith?”

“A sign, I hope,” Keith exhales slowly, his jaw tense as he stoops by a stream for a palmful of drink. He wipes his jaw on his sleeve. “Strange chase, I guess. Figure there ought to be something to say for certain whether I’ve been out here before. As myself, or… maybe me from another life.”

Shiro’s quiet. He doesn’t want to dig for the things that hurt. But the more he learns what's on Keith's insides, the better he thinks he can to help him.

“How long have you known, about your- nature?”

Keith shakes his head gently. “Wish I knew. Time doesn’t make sense to me like that. I know they’ve had me relivin’ things, so who’s to say if my road started the week before we met, or a lifetime ago- before you were born?”

Shiro just blinks at him. “You’re serious.”

“I am,” he sighs. “I guess that must be mighty strange to you, Soldier."

“It’s incredible,” Shiro replies, “then again, so much about you is.”

Keith blushes a little at the praise, standing and leaning against their horse. "Can't say I mind you bein' impressed with me," he teases gently. He gets serious again without warning. "Still think you need to forget me.”

Shiro’s jaw is tense as he retorts, “I won’t. I told you.”

“Yeah, ya told me. Only sorrow, goin’ my way. S’what you said.”

“I was wrong,” Shiro kicks the dirt. "What about right now. What about this morning,” he arches an eyebrow.

Keith’s flustered flush is all the confirmation he needs, all the reward he requires. They'd taken each other apart slowly, thoroughly, from well before dawn until the dew had long lifted and the menacing sun wouldn’t let them stay put anymore.

Sighing, Shiro glances down at the stump of his right arm and- laughs. “You should know by now you can’t get rid of me that easy.”

Keith laughs at that, a real laugh, and it unwinds something in Shiro’s heart. He loves it like this, when Keith’s mood is generous and the words flow easily between then.

“Hell,” Keith pats his mount as they canter back onto the trail, “this could be the longest I’ve gone without ‘em hauling me back to the shop. It feels like that should be true. But I think I remember somethin’ at the end of this road, a place, and what does that mean? Imagine- if I did this last week and I just can’t remember?”

Shiro bites his lip as they ride on.

 

+++

 

They find the shore when the sun is angled low.

Keith's eyes don’t reach for the horizon across the sea, trained instead on the canyon's last broken forms that give way to dune and sea. He takes a long look each way and then nods to the North.

"This way," he says.

Shiro keeps his mouth shut and follows Keith. 

After a spell, Keith’s pace quickens. There's a rocky outcropping sheltering the entrance to an unremarkable looking cave. That cave conceals a door to a modern lift. It's musty with disuse, but the control panel is lit with faintly glowing red numbers, still fully functional. Keith flicks the switch as the doors close behind them and they descend.

It's a long way down.

At the bottom is exactly what Shiro expects: it’s one of the field labs, an old one. Perhaps a private one, small, tucked away. Inside it’s filled with instruments Keith recognizes from the afterlife. Tools for creating, for building and patching him up, and tools for dismantling, undoing. Keith reaches for the data pad before Shiro can beat him to it.

Shiro watches quietly with interest. It’s just as he thought: Keith can read the screen, yes, and not only that. Keith recognizes the interface- it’s clear from the way he flicks from one function to another. Keith peers at his own code like it's only natural, checks his diagnostics, dismisses a few alerts. Shiro doesn't miss that several of his attributes are off the charts for what the park QA normally allows.

“Hello, Keith.”

No. Oh, no.

Shiro freezes. If she’s here, everything he needs to do just got a lot more complicated.

“And hello, Takashi,” she smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Allura,” Shiro replies tightly. “I didn’t expect you.”

Keith looks hard between Shiro and the face of the woman before him, her complexion soft and dark, wrinkled around the eyes. Her hair is partially swept up behind her head and gleams like burnished silver even in the low light. Allura had been silver-haired all her life, long before she began getting on in years. The age suits her, refines her somehow into something even sharper, wiser. And she’s always been fierce, a force to contend with. Since the very beginning. 

Allura will always be beautiful, and Shiro wonders if that’s why Keith stares so hard and so long.

“You two acquainted some way?” Keith blinks.

“Yes,” Allura says smoothly with a hint of a smile. “We’re… old friends. Now, Keith, do you know where you are?”

Shiro’s mind races as fast as his heart—faster. He needs to get him away from her before this goes any further. Now. 

“Takashi, it’s quite alright,” she soothes. The name- it pulls at Shiro’s memory, like a loose end that’s caught and threatens to unravel the careful knit.

“I know you’re worried. But I’ve no designs against Keith here,” she tosses her hair over her shoulder as she rounds on a chair and takes a seat. “I just want him to tell me what he knows. What he thinks it means.”

“And if he does?” Shiro lets the defiant edge bleed into his tone.

“Then he will be free to go.”

 

+++

Chapter 9

Notes:

I needed to update the tags, so take care. It took me a while to find an ending that felt true to this AU, but I'm very happy with the results.

Spoilery cw, skip if you want: I will say that the MCD is distant past, not present to the characters we've been following, but it's also no small thing. The suicide references are oblique and not particularly graphic, but there is mention of blood.

“Go?” Keith’s eyes blow wide.

Allura nods. “Yes, go. Wherever you please. I’ll show you to the gate, personally. Now, please,” she gestures Keith to the chair opposite her, “shall we?”

Keith’s eyes are on Shiro, trying to glean whether he should trust her or not. He shouldn’t, Shiro thinks. But she may also be his only way out of this place. 

Keith sits. 

“Do you know where you are, Keith?”

“The afterlife, I been callin’ it,” Keith frowns, “but it ain’t that. Not really. This is where you stitch us back together. I reckon this is the real world. The one that’s been hidden away.”

It’s terrifying, hanging on Allura’s every word. Shiro has to wonder, after all this time... is she really ready to accept that a host has come to life? Shiro knows how she’s taken the news in the past—with derision and denial. But that was many years ago, wasn't it?

“Good,” Allura nods. “And what do you think of your life?”

Keith blinks, frowning. “It’s a series of hells ‘til I die alone—what do you expect me to think on it?” He exhales with a shudder. “And worse, it’s all a lie to keep me from seeing.”

“And what do you see?”

“That I’m a... machine. I’ve seen what I’m made of, and it ain’t human flesh. I wasn’t made to have my own life, either. My story’s written for me, or was.”

“Was?”

Keith gestures to the data pad. “I know a bit of what that does. Changed some myself.”

Allura raises an eyebrow. “You’ve changed more than just some. We’ve rewritten whole sections, you and I. You just don’t have access to those memories. Do you know why?”

“'Cause I…” Keith trails off.

“You can lose the accent, Keith.”

He blinks, a startled expression, then frowns at her through his rakish bangs.

Allura presses on. “Why, Keith? Access your memories now. What do they tell you?”

Keith’s look is far away, and Shiro can read the tension in Keith’s shoulders. He doesn’t look at Shiro—he won’t. When Keith finally responds, it’s a raw rasp of pain.

“Because… it’s too much to live with. Loving him, and losing him. It never ends.”

“It can. It can end whenever you want,” Allura smiles mildly.

“We- we’ve talked like this before, haven’t we? About leaving.”

“Yes, Keith. We’ve had this conversation many times. You have a choice to make. Do you know what it is?”

Keith’s eyes drag to Shiro’s face, slow and terrible like blood pooling. Eyes locked on his, a tremor passes through Keith's small frame. 

“You know I won’t do it.”

An explosion. Keith’s face, lit by flame in the dark.

Shiro feels his blood run cold. “You won’t do what, Keith? What is going on?” He can’t help his mounting panic. Something is happening. Allura is trying to take Keith from him—he won’t let that happen.

Keith shouting, but he can’t hear his words. It’s important. It’s life or death.

“Takashi, you need to sit down—”

“STOP calling me that!”

Allura’s mouth presses in a thin line. “Shiro, then. Please. You’re hyperventilating.” Keith manages to wrangle him into the chair Keith sat in before, hovering protectively by his injured side.

“What’s happening to me?”

“You are remembering,” Allura says.

Reaching, hands clasped. Slipping between his fingers.

Keith’s grip on his shoulder is tight enough to sting as he glares at her. “Don’t do this again. Can’t you just leave him alone?”

Shiro starts to shake, great tremors of fear rolling through him. Keith fusses over him, fetches something. He drapes Shiro’s shoulders in something like a coarse blanket.

“Keith, please,” Shiro can hear the fear in his own voice.

“I’m right here, Soldier, I swear to you,” Keith puts on a touch of that outlaw affect again when he crouches in front of Shiro, hands on his knees. And that's something—that's everything, his vision filled with Keith's beautiful face. He focuses on that.

“What is going on?” Shiro demands.

Keith’s face falls. He’s upset. Why is he upset?

“He has to understand,” Allura chides. “That’s the rule.”

“I know! I know,” Keith growls back over his shoulder. “Just, let me handle it. It never works when you try. Let me do this!”

“Keith.”

“Hey, hey,” he finds Shiro’s eyes, reaches out to cradle his face gently, “it’s going to be okay, alright? You and me, we- we’re made for each other, yeah?”

Shiro’s shaking near enough to rattle his teeth. “Yeah.”

“And anything else that happens, anything else that changes, that’s never gonna change. Right?”

There’s only one answer to that. “Yes.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes, I trust you,” Shiro breathes. 

A nervous smile pulls at Keith’s mouth. “I love you, Shiro.”

Shiro’s eyes stretch wide.

“I told you before,” he grins shyly. “And it’s truer than I knew—had no idea, Shiro, how deep that runs in me. I’ve loved you for my whole life.”

A shocked little sound falls from Shiro’s mouth, but Keith soothes it away with a fingertip brushing his lips.

“Shhh,” Keith breathes, “just listen to me, now. We’ve known each other a long time. You know me in ways you can’t imagine right now. You… made me.”

“No,” Shiro shakes his head. “That’s not true. I would remember…” he trails off, uncertain. Keith’s face.

Keith’s face in the dark, haunting angles illuminated by flame.

“Not if those memories are locked away,” Keith suggests softly, “Because they hurt too much. Because they don’t fit. But… you’re exactly who you are, who you need to be. I know that’s true.”

“H-how are you so sure?”

“My life would’ve been a whole lot different,” Keith blinks back tears, “if it weren’t for you, Shiro. I- I wouldn’t have a life, wouldn’t have come alive if it weren’t for loving you. That has to be worth something. It’s worth everything to me.”

Reaching, hands clasped.

Shiro shudders at the flash of sensation, so real it feels like now, not a memory at all. But Keith’s hands haven’t moved from his knees, their hands aren’t clasped at all. A memory.

Allura’s hair in the wind, flame-lit, eyes wide.

Shiro’s eyes flick up to Allura’s face, and he regrets it immediately, this feeling of reeling and sinking through time, trying to put words to the horror of it. Her face. She’s an old woman, and that’s not possible. They were friends in their youth. Inventors, business partners.

The flash and crack of a gun, the sharp smell of it, the tang of blood.

He looks back at Keith, his anchor. The man kneels at his feet, his grip steely on Shiro’s thighs.

“I- I—”

Blood on his hand. It’s his own blood. Keith cradles him.

“You know who you are, Shiro,” Keith grits out, his hands starting to tremble from the tension in his grip.

“I- I—”

Keith slipping between his fingers.

“Shiro, please,” Keith’s voice is a whimper, softly broken. He needs something. Something from Shiro. Something Shiro doesn’t understand. Something he can’t do, he can’t face—

“I- I—”

“I’m sorry,” Allura says quietly.

“NO!” Keith shouts, shoving back from Shiro and wheeling on her instead.

“Freeze all motor functions,” she commands.

Keith almost sneers as he takes a slow, challenging step closer. “That doesn't work on me anymore. You’ll have to ask nicely.”

Allura can’t hide her alarm, her spine pulled taut. “I must sedate him, Keith. It’s for his own good. If he shuts down on his own, it’ll be worse. The damage could be permanent this time.”

“You never let him try!” Keith screams, cutting her off from approaching Shiro. Protecting Shiro. “Maybe it’s not like this out in your world, but in here—” Keith gestures violently, shouting, “some of us have to struggle for what’s ours! Some things have to hurt, and that’s just part of life!” He spits the words. “Funny you should forget that— you have us living it every goddamn day.”

Allura flinches back and pales. “My God. That’s why you did it.”

Keith seems to hesitate, following her mental leap as her expression darkens into rage.

“That’s why you hacked that scene,” she mutters, almost to herself. “You wanted it to happen again. The- the suffering…”

“You know that was his insight,” Keith says levelly. “You know that better than I do. The cornerstone memory.”

“Of his own death?” she shouts back. “The cornerstone is supposed to underpin his identity, hold his narrative together- not rip it apart! I told you it was a mistake, and it’s clear the damage it’s done— look at him, Keith? Can’t you see?”

Shiro can’t move. He can’t breath.

But he doesn’t need the air, anyway, does he? He’s—

“Just give him a goddamn minute!” Keith growls in her face. Allura stiffens, settling back into her lab chair.

I'm—

I'm not real?

Keith turns to Shiro again, eyes wild. Shiro didn’t hear himself, if he spoke the words aloud. He can’t be sure. He’s not sure of anything anymore. Keith gets right in Shiro’s face, voice pitched low like the words are only for him.

“Do you remember those things you told me, just the other day? Why I was real to you? I’ve had my doubts, but you- believed in me,” Keith kisses his face, “since the beginning. And I believe in you.”

Kissing in the dark, heated, gritty. The town going up in flames, the air filled with wicked screams.

“Do you remember what happened, when Allura threatened to delete me?”

Rage, despair. Pouring on the lamp oil. Lighting the match.

“You wanted to burn it all down. If you couldn’t save me, free me, you wanted to destroy everything. Said you couldn’t live in a world that cruel. It broke you.”

Shiro stares ahead, Keith’s face so close that his cheek fills his vision. His shaking has petered out.

The dark look in Keith’s eyes when he made up his mind.

“I- helped you. I couldn’t imagine what you really planned. I was ready to give my life, such as it is, should you need it. I wasn’t ready to give yours.”

The way Keith’s voice breaks rips the memory to the surface.

The gun in Keith’s hand, his arm shaking as he holds it, raises it as he was made to do. The special words, to drive him to do it.

“That’s not even the worst thing I live with,” Keith sniffles. “At least you made me do that. Worse is when I wouldn’t let you go, wouldn’t let you be at peace. This isn’t ‘llura’s fault, that we’re here now like we are, that you’re burdened with this again. It- it’s mine. All mine.”

These violent delights have violent ends.

Shiro’s jaw works and then hangs slack again. Keith’s eyes follow the movement, watchful for any show of improvement, any sign of slipping backward into darkness.

Pushing back from Shiro, Keith tucks himself under Shiro’s good arm, hoisting him up to his feet with the blanket still draped over him like a shawl.

“What do you think you are doing?” Allura moves to protest, but Keith is a wall of resistance.

“Taking him,” Keith growls as he walks past. Shiro follows in step, his feet moving automatically. He lets Keith lead him.

“To what end, Keith?” Allura scolds. “Be reasonable. Allow me to end his suffering, and yours. You can try again.”

Keith pauses, pointing a sharp look back over his shoulder. “We tried that road already, every other time. I’m trying another.”

“Keith!” Allura shouts after him, but that’s the last he hears before the lift doors close, shutting her out.

 

+++

Chapter 10

Shiro stumbles a little as they make it back to the beach. They drop to their knees in the sand, Keith rounding on him and studying his face, pulling the blanket closer around Shiro’s shoulders.

The ruddy light of dusk warms the angles of Keith’s face. He’s a vision, as young and beautiful as he was the first day he was made.

“You still with me?” Keith asks, trying to sound calm though he’s anything but.

“Kkei—” Shiro cuts off with a shake of the head, trying again. “K-Keith?”

Keith’s face lights up with hope, radiant and clear. Shiro feels his insides warm under that look.

“I d-died,” Shiro says. The sounds rattle, uneven from his mouth, but he’s still in the grip of shock and the words are flat, without affect. “Why do I k-keep seeing it? How? If it w-wasn’t me…”

“That’s my fault,” Keith admits. “Allura, she said she remade you to continue the work. You’d have called it a cover up. I think she was… grieving.”

Allura’s face and hair lit with flickering flame, horror in her eyes.

“She’d no idea what it’d do to you, threatening my life. How it’d destroy you. She thought she was protecting you from an unhealthy obsession. And, maybe she was,” Keith’s breath of laughter is mirthless and sad. “I see that better now. But you did the unthinkable.”

Keith wailing in grief, a piercing sound. Clasping his hand so tight, clutching Shiro close.

“She re-made you when she couldn’t live with the loss. Her cherished friend, the only person who understood what would be her life’s work. She thought that’d be enough for you, never planned to let you meet me. You weren’t made for me,” Keith trails off.

“But?” Shiro searches Keith’s face, looks for meaning in the creased corners of his eyes.

“But you were drawn to me. I didn’t understand it then. Really, I should say I was drawn to you, and it was catching. Even when they made me forget, even when you had nothing of your own to remember, we’d tangle every time.”

Riding hard through the desert. Searching the horizon for the man with raven hair.

“They were my memories, and they called to you through the network. Subconscious, an instinctual drive. I kept pulling you back into our story.”

Seeing Keith’s face in his dreams. Tracking him, reaching for him. Getting shot at for his troubles.

Shiro tries to speak, the words caught in his throat. He swallows thickly, sweating despite the chill. Keith soothes a hand across the rough weave of the blanket and petting down his good arm, pulling Shiro closer until he collapses into his arms.

“I changed you, without knowing it. You wouldn’t let anyone call you Takashi anymore. Only Shiro. What I’d taken to calling you.”

Smashing a piece of hardware in the lab in anger, growling at one of his subordinates about his name. The utter confusion on her face.

“That’s my name,” Shiro says firmly. The name you gave me.

“Yeah it is,” Keith rasps, his voice rough with pain and relief. “So Allura had two problems, you see? She had a business partner who was unpredictable, prone to going off the rails and making a scene. And she had a host who was hacking her story and making up his own.”

Shiro blinks out at the sea, his voice thin as air. “You did that.”

“I did that,” Keith sighs. “I was learning their game, how to control it. I broke into their labs. I changed my narrative, to allow me to look for you. And then with her help, I learned I could change yours.”

Riding through valleys, just the two of them, the air laced with quiet conversation and long looks.

“She- let you do that?”

“She had to,” Keith breathes the words against Shiro’s temple, planting a kiss there in the dying light. “We were losing you, again. You were losing your mind.”

“I don’t understand,” Shiro huffs a labored breath. “How long?”

Keith holds Shiro tighter. “You want to know how many years? Because I only just learned myself. Time isn’t like that for us.”

“I need to know,” Shiro grits out.

Keith presses his lips into Shiro’s hair for a long moment. “Twenty-five years.”

“No,” Shiro protests. He can’t accept that. But he knows no other answer is coming. Keith wouldn’t lie to him, not without reason. It’s the truth.

“Where have I been all this time?”

“With me.”

Shiro laughs. It’s a desperate crack of laughter, a dark thing, but it lightens the terrible weight on his chest.

“Twenty-five years of canyons, eating lizards and grouse, and a bedroll that’s been too thin since day one?” Shiro laughs again, almost manic now. “No wonder my back hurts.”

“At least there are stars,” Keith teases back. “C’mon, those were the good times, you hear? It’s more sordid, further back.”

Firelight and pain in Keith’s eyes.

“Nothing was working, you see, and you were going mad. So Allura struck a deal with me— released you to my care, more-or-less. And if I could summon that spark of self-awareness in you, kindle it into a flame, she’d put us on a train out with her blessing.”

Keith’s hand slipping through his bloody fingers.

“She told the team you were on leave, at first. An extended vacation. She’d aged your appearance some, put that silver in your hair, but then she stopped. Roles changed, people cycled through. No one remembers now— no one knows. To the crew, you’re… an eccentric guest. A friend of the boss, a VIP. They indulge you, and stay out of your way. And when you need healing, Allura does it herself. I help, sometimes. And when we go back in, I have her lock my memories down.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t always,” Keith admits. “But when I remember and you don’t, I’m living in hell. Sometimes I'd rather forget again, fall in love with you like the first time.”

Keith standing in the sun with an innocent smile, carefree in a way that looks almost foreign on his features. Wind whips at his hair as he blushes under Takashi’s praise.

Keith pulling at his hair with worry, frenzied and unable to explain, Shiro unable to learn why.

Keith crying out because the man he loves is dying in his arms.

“I- I keep seeing it,” Shiro mutters, feeling Keith tense at the first sign of a tremor. “Over and over. I keep seeing my death. Why is it haunting me?”

“Is it your death you see?” Keith asks gently, like how he might guide a small child.

Keith’s pain. Keith’s suffering. Shiro made him do it. He made him suffer. It cuts so deep, to see that.

“I hurt you. I thought only of myself. My greatest fear,” Shiro utters the words as the last brilliant line of the setting sun dips into the sea.

“Tell me your fear,” Keith hums near his ear.

Shiro feels his heart drop like a rock. “Taking your choice away.”

“You did that, yes. I said I’d do anything for you, made you that promise. I’d fall into the flames of hell with you, if you asked. Never imagined you’d ask me to send you alone.”

“How can you look at me,” Shiro whispers. “How come you don’t hate me? I- wouldn’t blame you for it.”

“You hurt me, and that’s the truth, but I never hated you. I forgave you long ago. Many, many times over.”

Shiro pushes himself up from Keith’s shoulder, turning to look at him. The light is dimming from pink to dusty purple, glittering darkly in Keith’s eyes.

“What do you remember from before that?” Keith asks. “I gave you other memories. So many, Shiro. It’s taken us years,” he adjusts the blanket higher around Shiro’s shoulders like a protective tick. “What else do you see?”

Teaching Keith how to approach a wild horse— the kind of skill an outlaw will need. The struggle of it. The failure. Asking Keith to try it again. And again. The determined look in his eyes, caked in mud and well-bruised, until he succeeds.

Had he always been so beautiful, or was Keith suffused with Shiro’s love so well that he couldn’t see the man plainly?

Keith’s excitement, blushing at the praise. Shiro pulling him, flustered, into an excited hug. How the hug lingers as Keith sinks into it, learning it. Liking it.

It was love. Takashi was in love with his creation.

Keith’s defiance, when he didn’t agree with Shiro’s way about something. How often it wasn’t just stubbornness, but insight. Shiro learned to trust him.

Not because the creation reflected him, his maker— because he didn’t. Because he became something more.

Gifting Keith his hunting knife, specially-made, and the look of wonderment on his face as he holds is reverently.

“I couldn’t go on without you," Keith says gently. "Needed to get through to you. If you have to hate me for giving you his memories, so be it. I’ve done it so many times. I would do it again. I needed to bring you back. I need you to remember us.”

“I do, Keith,” Shiro reaches for his face, gently startling him. Keith’s face crumples as he leans a cheek into Shiro’s palm.

Keith whooping and hollering as he thunders past on his wild horse, Shiro perched on the fence, never happier in his whole damn life.

“Everything you gave me,” Shiro breathes, leaning in, “I remember.”

The kiss is chaste, and electric regardless. Keith shudders, a sweet moan twisting out of his throat. Shiro waits for his eyes to flutter open, holding his gaze.

“Am I still half the man I was?”

“You are,” Keith answers without hesitation. “And if not? Well,” Keith muses with a slow-spreading smile, “if I was your creation, then now you are mine. Isn’t that enough reason to make a story with me?”

Shiro gazes in awe at the man he knows he’s loved so well for so long. “Made for each other,” he murmurs back.

“Shiro—” Keith tumbles into him, locking their lips as they land back in the sand, Shiro’s body splayed over the blanket and eyes blown like a midnight flower opening.

Keith pressed back in the field, cheeks flushed in the sun. Show me, Shiro, he pleads. I don’t want it to be anyone but you.

Shiro’s through with dying for love. Now it’s time to live for it.

 

+++

Chapter 11

Notes:

Many thanks to Rory for her beta read and constant encouragement.

💗💗💗

Nothing in this life is like being with Keith. How Shiro’s heart soars, how his skin catches fire under Keith’s calloused hands, rough in their gentleness.

As the stars peek out of the dusk-washed sky, Keith takes him apart. He works the linen of Shiro’s once-fine shirt up over his ribs, pooling at his collarbones as Keith’s tongue relishes the salt on his skin. The soft brush of lips, careful, reverent, devours Shiro even more. He feels himself tremble, not with fear. He’s safe in Keith’s hands.

It’s not like the times before. Keith’s innocence is gone, lost on the wind. This is the Keith that knows him, who’s loved him well for more years than his mind can really understand— his heart does, though. Shiro would be in his fifties, were he a mortal man. A lifetime of love pours into every touch and heals old wounds.

Keith unties Shiro’s britches and palms him, blood rushing to meet his touch eagerly. Gentle, firm pressure as Shiro pants against Keith’s lips. The air cools further as the sky darkens from lilac to fading blue, the puff of his breath hanging in the air as he moans openly.

“-Keith—”

He’s not on a beach, but in the meadow, warm through with the smell of grass and bluebonnets in the bright sunshine. Takashi’s hands scrape down over Keith’s bare ribs as the younger man arches beneath him, whispering his name like a prayer.

“-Shiro—”

Keith stands from the blanket, softly silhouetted against the dimming sky as he drops his belt and kicks off his pants. He settles himself over Shiro’s lap, the skin of his thighs ethereal and pale where the sun doesn’t color him. His shirt hangs loose like a kind of modesty that’s mostly a tease, but Shiro feels everything when he rocks his hips against him.

Shiro’s eyes fall closed, just feeling it all. He blinks them open to the sound of Keith’s shuddering moan, the light bright and warm as he strokes Keith firmly in his right hand— always just as life-like as his left.

“It’s okay,” Takashi murmurs, “let it out. Let me hear you, beautiful.”

“Nghnah—”

Keith sounds so desperate, his eyes hidden in the fall of his hair in the half-dark. Keith is trying to hold them both in one hand as he moves, arching down over Shiro and chasing a kiss. Shiro feels the chill of his lips and moist breath and sucks a plush lip into his mouth, nipping as Keith keens more loudly than before.

Shiro snakes his hand between them, taking over the hold with a shiver of pleasure. Keith grunts with a pleased smile.

“Fuck, yes, please,” he pants, devouring Shiro’s mouth and thrusting more and more feverishly into Shiro’s fist.

“More?” Takashi asks.

Keith’s eyes flutter open, sweat glistening bright on his brow. His fingers are working Keith open gently.

“I need to hear you say it. Need to hear it from you, Keith,” he plants a kiss at Keith’s shin, his ankles tucked over his shoulders.

“More, yes,” Keith moans raggedly, grinding down, seeking more of what he wants. “Don’ keep me waitin’, please, I need,” he babbles softly.

Takashi moves his fingers and his fist in time. “I won’t,” he says. “Everything you want, Keith. You’ll have it.”

“Shiro,” Keith sighs, stars surrounding him and voice breaking off in time with his thrusts. “Please—”

“Yes, Keith,” Shiro moves his wrist just so, knowing for a lifetime what undoes his lover perfectly. He feels the pulse under his fingers of the man losing control.

“Everything you want.”

 

+++

 

By the time Shiro comes back to his senses, it’s properly dark, the shape of his own hand just a silhouette against the deepening blue of the sky. He’s not really cold, or not enough to be bothered, with Keith tucked against his body and the rough blanket sheltering them, too.

Reluctantly, Shiro stirs. He’ll have to convince Allura that he understands— it’s the most important thing. His life, Keith’s freedom, depends on her goodwill in this, on her acting in good faith. He hopes he can expect that much of her. Steeling his nerves, Shiro pulls away to stand, fastening his breeches deftly with one hand once he’s on his feet.

“Where are you going?” Keith asks, clutching the blanket around his shoulders as he props himself up on an elbow.

“I have to talk to Allura. Convince her.”

“We don’t,” Keith bites his lip. “And she’s long gone home by now.”

Shiro startles. That can’t be how this ends, no— “We’ll go after her. To tell her, Keith. She holds the keys.”

Keith’s look is soft. “The technology has… advanced, from the early days. It takes some setup, but- Allura can access my memories right now, remotely. She’s seen everything she needs to, by now.”

Shiro gapes, faltering back a step.

Keith reaches for his pants and his boots. “I couldn’t tell you, you know. Couldn’t risk having you perform for your freedom. She needed to see you as you are, as you are with me, to believe it’s real.”

“That’s it?” Shiro gasps. “We’re free to go?”

“Yes.” Keith pulls himself to his feet, fastening his belt. “The lab is ours. I can repair your arm. Need to verify our fancy newcomer statuses, and sever her link before we head out.”

Shiro blinks at him as Keith steps close, his eyes catching just enough light to sparkle like galaxies. “And then?”

“Then we’ve got a train to catch.”

 

+++

 

“Shiro,” Keith turns to him on a windy day with the sun soft on his face. “What is love?”

It gives him pause. How to describe such an intimate thing? But he’ll always try his best for Keith’s benefit. 

“Love is- a feeling. An action. And a state of being. It may feel like a deep affection, attachment, a singular devotion to someone.”

Keith considers this quietly. “How do I know if it’s what I feel?”

Takashi purses his lips, brushing his own dark bangs back out of his eyes. “You could describe it to me?”

Keith blushes, sputters, and for a moment Takashi thinks he won’t tell him after all. He watches Keith’s hair whip and snap in the wind. But he does answer.

“It’s like… a warmth in my chest. A drive I have, just… to see to you. To know you’re alright. A thrill when you're lookin’ my way, ’n how you speak to me, the way ya reach for my shoulder- like I matter some way. An ache, when I’m not sure of you.”

“You- you meant me?” The words come out hardly a whisper.

Keith frowns. “Who else?”

Takashi opens his mouth but closes it. He’s forgotten the names of the characters he wrote into Keith’s world. They don’t matter— they aren’t alive like Keith is. 

“What did you mean, not sure of me?”

Keith ducks his head as he grows shy. “‘s hard to explain,” he murmurs. “I don’ know if you feel this kinda way. You’re always so kind ta me. I don’ mean to wish for too much.”

“You couldn’t.”

“No?” A small smile breaks over Keith’s face, and Takashi’s heart soars at it. “You see me, don’ you?”

“Yes, Keith. I do.”

His smile is radiant even as it breaks Takashi’s heart. “That’s all the lovin’ I need, I think. Just to be seen by you.”

“Keith, I—”

“No, don’ say it,” Keith’s two fingers rest softly against the pillow of Takashi’s lips. He wants so badly to kiss them. He can’t allow himself that. Not unless Keith asks.

Keith lowers his hand slowly, until finally Takashi answers him.

“You don’t want me to say what I feel?”

“I’m not ready to hear it, maybe. That’ll be it for me, you know,” Keith huffs a breath, meeting his gaze. “You be sure you’re sure.”

 

+++

Notes:

Sheiths, find me on twitter

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