Takashi "Shiro" Kogane (takashi) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-05-21 22:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, voltron: takashi shirogane, ₴ inactive: keith |
What bothered him more was that he'd barely seen Shiro in the days since. He was always running or training or taking an extra patrol. Keith wasn't sure if it was Shiro overcompensating for a loss … or Shiro avoiding Keith himself.
Either way, he didn't like it. And he wanted it to stop. They'd finally got time to just hang out and do what they wanted to do here. Keith didn't want to give that up when he didn't have to just because of a dumb match. He missed Shiro when he didn't see him.
So when one of the other members of patrol said that Shiro had gone on yet another run, Keith grimaced and then went to where he knew the end of Shiro's route was, leaning up against a tree and waiting for him.
He didn't have long to wait, since Shiro wasn't moving slow. Keith waited for Shiro to spot him, and then stepped into his path so he couldn't get any ideas about doing another circuit. "Hey," he said, handing Shiro a bottle of water he'd grabbed on the way. "You've been running a lot," he added, because Keith never was graceful with delicate topics, even when he wanted to be.
As patient and compassionate as Shiro was with other people, he was sometimes quite the opposite with himself. He should have done better in the ring. He’d been saying these words to himself every day since. He should have been better, even though it was only for sport. He shouldn’t have let the lights and the music and the people cheering leave him vaguely unsettled.
It wasn’t like he’d felt transported back to the arena. It was just an itch under his skin that had eaten away at his focus, eroded his hard earned patience, until defeat was guaranteed.
He hadn’t consciously avoided Keith since. But subconsciously, Shiro would’ve chosen as many extra miles on the track and extra hours in the gym as he needed to not feel like a failure in the eyes of his best friend. It seemed like such a waste of everything Keith had done to save him.
Which was why seeing Keith at the end of his run path made him stumble half a step. He slowed to a stop, panting and sweating through his white tank top. There were earbuds in his ears but he tugged them out and left them dangling around his neck as he accepted the water bottle.
“Running is good exercise, Keith,” Shiro murmured, not making eye contact as he opened the bottle and poured some water into his mouth. His manners seemed to catch up to him a little late. He lifted the bottle and smiled apologetically. “Thank you. For this.”
Keith looked deeply unimpressed by Shiro's excuse. "It's exercise until it's just running yourself into the ground. Then it's something else." Self-flagellation. Or avoidance. Keith didn't know which one it was, but he didn't like it either way. "You're welcome," he added, just to be polite.
But he only waited a couple of seconds before asking. "Is this about this weekend? The fights?" He doubted it COULD be anything else ... though maybe if Shiro wasn't sleeping right or something. Keith knew he had bad nights. They both did. That seemed less likely than Shiro beating himself up over losing, though.
Shiro sighed before he could stop himself. His shoulders sagged. He wasn’t good at hiding things from Keith and he hoped he never would be, but it was still frustrating that he was so easy to read. Frustrating and oddly heartwarming. That very old saying about submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being known came to mind.
Shiro took another drink to stall a few seconds longer.
“I just…” He twisted the cap shut, then open, then shut again. “I’m clearly not at my best so I’m working on that. It’s not running myself into the ground.” Even though he stood a little straighter, he still didn’t quite meet Keith’s gaze head on. “It’s personal improvement.”
Keith frowned. "That's not true," he said. "You've been sparring with me, I've been with you on patrol. You're in top condition. It's not ... you just had an off day, Shiro. That doesn't mean you're not at your best. Or that you need improvement."
Shiro always pushed himself so hard. Keith found it frustrating, but also it was just ... Shiro. He told everyone else that it was okay to make mistakes, but he didn't tell himself the same thing. "You don't need to be any better than you are," Keith told him.
“Yes, well.” Shiro took a deep breath, lowering the water bottle to his side. While Keith’s faith in him made his chest feel hot and light, it didn’t rid him of the feeling that he did need to be better. “Can I really afford to have off days? I know this was just for sport, but I felt...unstable. If that happened in a life or death situation...”
The last time he’d been less than his best, he’d died. He doubted he’d get two resurrections in one lifetime.
Mental gymnastics aside, his muscles were stiffening from a lack of a cool down jog, so he started to stretch with practiced and methodical ease. “Look, maybe you don’t understand because you went out there and you were incredible.”
Keith's frown just deepened. "What does THAT mean? 'Can you afford to have off days'? That's like asking if you can afford to be human. Everybody has off days. You're not unstable. And when it matters, you always come through. This was ... just sparring. For fun. It doesn't mean anything that you didn't win."
He grimaced. "It doesn't mean anything that I did win either, except that I had a good day when some of those other people didn't. It was just for fun, Shiro. If it wasn't fun, then maybe that's why it wasn't going right for you."
Keith had noticed the shirt stuck to Shiro's shoulders with sweat. It was something he paid more attention than he used to - ever since Atreus mentioned Shiro's shoulders, Keith caught himself noticing more. He'd never paid a lot of attention to that kind of thing, usually. He'd just liked being around Shiro. But ... they were nice. And when Shiro started stretching Keith caught himself watching and blushed, looking away.
Shiro came up out of a lunge stretch with a scowl. Hearing his words echoed back to him with Keith’s patented brand of skepticism was sobering.
“I…” He suddenly felt embarrassed and exhausted all rolled into one. If Keith or any of the other paladins had talked like he was, pushed themselves as hard, he’d have said the same things Keith was saying now. He blew out a breath and pinched his nose between his fingers. “No, I mean, of course I’m allowed to be human. I just... I guess I wasn’t having fun.”
Clearing his throat, he dropped his hand away from his face and finally looked at Keith. He was surprised to find Keith not looking back and he mentally stumbled before pushing on ahead. “I thought I would. But then I got in the ring and it slowly felt more like...a test I wasn’t ready for.”
Keith crossed his arms over his chest, looking back at Shiro finally, cheeks still a little hot. "Why not? You had fun getting ready with me. But if you weren't, then ... that's why, Shiro. It doesn't have anything to do with you not running enough," Keith drew out "running" into an overly long word, eyes rolling a little.
But then he smiled slightly. "If it WAS a test, you'd have been ready. You always are," Keith said. "You just - you're way too hard on yourself. Even if you didn't win, you were great your first match. You just need to see yourself the way I do."
“I don’t know why.” Shiro frowned and swiped his damp hair off his forehead. “You weren’t there in the ring and then with the music and the lights and the people, it was less like sparring with you, with someone I trust, and more like being on display for someone else’s entertainment.”
He shook his head and took another drink of water. Vulnerability wasn’t hard around Keith. It never had been. But it let some of his buried insecurities creep a little too close to the surface. He kept his chin down and looked sideways at Keith.
Shiro meant to say something about not always being ready, but what came out was a quiet, “How do you see me?”
"Oh." It dawned on Keith then. He hadn't thought about it like that, but it must have been like the Arena. Shiro hadn't told Keith everything, he knew that. Shiro liked to keep his pain close so he didn't bother other people with it. But he knew enough, from Shiro, from Matt, from what he'd heard with the Blades. "It was like the Arena for you," he said quietly. He stepped forward, reaching to wrap his fingers around Shiro's wrist and squeezing lightly. "I'm sorry. I didn't think of that."
The question took him aback. How did you answer that? Shiro was Shiro. He was strong and steady, but human and approachable. He'd been Keith's touchstone since the day he stepped in to intervene in his life, even when Keith was trying to fight against it. He was brave and he was good and he was frustratingly stubborn most of the time, but that was part of who he was. And he believed in people and causes in a way that Keith had trouble with. Keith had to work to have that kind of faith, but Shiro just had it. He'd even had it in Keith when he had no reason to. He was Keith's best friend and his most consistent ally and the first person who ever really believed in him, after his dad was gone.
How did you put all that into words that didn't sound stupid? Keith wasn't great with words.
"I see ... you?" Keith said awkwardly, blushing again. "You're Shiro. You're ... you're always good. Even when you screw up or make a mistake, you do it because you were trying to do the right thing. And you make everyone around you better. You're nicer than anyone who's been through the stuff you have should be. And you ... I don't know how to say it right." Keith rubbed shyly at the back of his neck. There was more too, how he'd started to notice ... shoulders and things and how he kept wondering about Shiro and Atreus and things like that. But he didn't even know how to start to frame that. Or if he should, since Keith wasn't even sure what it meant. "You're just you," he finally said quietly. "That's everything."
Shiro felt his breath catch and his gaze dropped to Keith’s hand on his wrist. Instinctively, he reached with his free hand to clamp a hand on Keith’s shoulder, like completing a circuit. “It’s okay, I--it wasn’t that bad. I knew where I was, I just felt...unsteady.”
That feeling was nowhere to be found now, with Keith close and his words rolling up and over Shiro like a wave. It was getting harder and harder to hide from his feelings. He wondered how much of them were painted on his face even now. Shiro flashed an off-kilter smile and squeezed Keith’s shoulder before he let go.
“That means a lot to me, Keith. That you see me that way. Maybe you’re right about being hard on myself, but…” His gaze lingered on Keith’s face then skittered away over his shoulder. “I’m not always good. I can be selfish. Stubborn.”
Keith felt fidgety, like Shiro's gaze held some kind of weight. He bit his lip and leaned into the hand on his shoulder just a little, peering up at Shiro. Shiro's face was ... Keith didn't know, but he didn't know that he'd really seen him look at people like that before.
"Maybe sometime they'll have ... a team fight or something. And we can go together. Maybe then you'd feel better about it," Keith said, feeling like he was talking without really being in control of his mouth. It just was moving all on its own because he was paying too much attention to the hand on his shoulder and that weight behind Shiro's gaze.
He rocked a little when Shiro let go, bereft enough by the absence of touch that he pouted without realizing. "You can be human then," he repeated, giving Shiro a little smile. "So ... that's allowed. That doesn't mean you're not still good. And I really already know about the stubborn."
“Listen,” Shiro huffed out in a laugh, reaching out to poke Keith in the ribs teasingly. “You’re nailing this whole getting me out of my head talk, but if you could stop busting my balls, that would be great.”
He rarely said anything so colorful. It hadn’t really been appropriate with the paladins, as young as most of them were. But Keith was an adult now and had been for awhile. He showed it every day in his actions and heart. Still, Shiro felt his face heat traitorously.
“What you said, about maybe fighting together. I hope you’re right,” he smiled. “As much as I enjoy sparring against you, I’ll always prefer fighting by your side.”
Keith swatted at Shiro's fingers automatically - he was ticklish and always had been - but he grinned at him, kind of delighted looking. Of all of them, the most likely to get colorful with their language was probably Pidge, and she tended not to do it around Shiro. But Keith hadn't heard it from Shiro much and it was just ... funny. "Someone has to. Everybody else here. You've been here a few months and already have people calling you dad!"
It was even funnier that Shiro was blushing about it. Like Keith had never heard anyone say BALLS before. He was sort of tempted to tease Shiro about it, but then he was afraid Shiro wouldn't say stuff like that anymore, so he didn't. Mostly.
The weight of the moment had ebbed with the teasing a bit, and Keith was both glad and a little disappointed for reasons he wasn't going to examine. "Yeah ... it's always better with you. Maybe we could ask them about setting that up in the future. Or if not, we could ask Atreus and one of his friends if they want to go two on two. I think he kind of knows everybody."
“Who calls me dad?” Shiro laughed, horrified and amused all at once. He was tempted to go for Keith’s ribs again, if only to keep that dazzling grin in place. “No one calls me dad. Not to my face anyway.” God, he hoped that didn’t become a thing. He was twenty-six, not forty.
Knowing Keith saw him as a brother already left an uncomfortable weight in his stomach when he should just be grateful he could be the family Keith deserved. He was grateful. He was also frowning, lost in thought.
“I--Atreus? Oh, right. Absolutely. He looked like he was having fun out there.” Shiro rolled his neck, the frown not yet shaking free. “It’s nice...that you uh, like him. He’s a good friend to have.”
Keith was still grinning. "They do so! The kid with the glasses? Richie, I think? He said it when he came over while you were younger, before I turned into a kid too. He calls you space dad."
His own smile faded though when Shiro started frowning. Keith's head tilted, trying to figure out what brought it on.
"I think he has fun with most things he does." Keith kind of had that sense of him. He also had the sense that under the happy and flirting thing he did, Atreus had seen his own shit and been unhappy plenty of times too. From some of the things he said and just a feeling Keith had. He kind of admired people who came out of things being happy and good or positive. Like Shiro. Keith had never managed that. He tried more these days, but his first reactions were always to withdraw or snap at people when he was stressed.
"He was your friend first," Keith said slowly. He looked at the frown again, and thought of some of the things him and Atreus had talked about. "Did you ... uh ... want him to be more than a friend?"
“Oh my god.” Shiro was back to flushing red for a variety of reasons. At least the first of which, he let out a strangled laugh about. “Okay, first of all, calling me space dad and calling me dad are totally different. Please, if you care about my sanity, let’s just stop saying dad and my name in the same sentence forever.”
With that covered, slightly overdramatically, he could zero in on the question that had startled him into standing up straighter and pressing a hand to the back of his neck. “Secondly….,” he murmured. “...The thought of Atreus like that crossed my mind, sure. But it wouldn’t be fair to him. I…” His throat felt dry. He closed his eyes for a moment. “My heart wouldn’t be in it. So if you’re waiting--if that’s something you--” The water bottle was empty. He knew because he’d just accidentally poured the last fourth of it onto the ground.
“Damn it,” Shiro mumbled.
Keith just looked a little confused, but he rolled his eyes, smiling because Shiro was laughing. "It still has 'dad' in it," he insisted. "But fine." He'd let it go. Probably. Maybe not if he could get Shiro to laugh more.
When Shiro started talking again, Keith's eyes went to the water spilled out on the ground first before he looked back at Shiro's neck, watching him fidget. "I didn't mean ... I just thought it'd been a while. Since Adam. So I was just asking." He didn't know what Shiro meant. And much as Keith didn't want Shiro to date Atreus ... he didn't like the idea of Shiro's heart not being in anything either. If he was still hung up on Adam after all this time ... Keith liked that even less. He must be so lonely.
"Hey - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say anything to … bring up bad stuff," Keith said helplessly.
It wasn’t as if Shiro had forgotten about Adam. But hearing his name in this context felt like a punch in the gut. He could easily lean into it as an explanation for his behavior, but that would feel like too much of a lie and Adam’s memory deserved better treatment than that, no matter how things had ended between.
Shiro managed a smile. It was shaky but genuine. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” he assured. “Adam....feels like a lifetime ago. I’ve said my goodbyes. I just wish they could’ve been in person, for his sake.” Reaching out, he ruffled Keith’s hair. “Now if you’re done interrogating me about my workouts and nonexistent dating life, maybe we could go get something to eat. I’d fly through ten asteroid belts for a stack of good pancakes right about now.”
Things had turned a corner somewhere and Keith wasn't sure where, but he was pretty certain he'd been the one to push it the wrong way. The hand in his hair was nice, it usually was, even if he always made a face over getting his overly-thick hair mussed. But it felt like Shiro was just evading him, and Keith didn't like it. But he didn't want to keep pushing at something that obviously made Shiro unhappy, either.
So he paused for a little too long, eyes searching Shiro's face before he gave in. "It wasn't interrogating. But yeah. Okay. Pancakes sound good." Food was always always safe. Both of them were always appreciative of good food after so much time with space goo or equally unappetizing options.
Being under that scrutinizing gaze should’ve bothered Shiro for different reasons than it did. As it was, he hated that he needed to nip this whole encounter in the bud. It would be better to have Keith locking him down with those violet eyes than to keep pretending he wasn’t affected by them.
But it was better to keep pretending than risk the relationship that meant the most to him.
“Good answer. My bike’s back that way.” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb and then a slow, dangerous smile shaped his mouth. He gave Keith another poke in the ribs.
“Race you!” Shiro took off at a run.