K O G A N E

SEND “MISTLETOE KISS” TO CATCH MY MUSE UNDER THE MISTLETOE.

     ❛ where did you even get that? ❜ because lance has some ability to pick up the impossible, and somehow finds mistletoe ( or probably something even more poisonous ) out in the middle of space. three guesses as to where he’s been dangling it around, from the slight allura-shaped hand-print he’s got on the side of his head. but it doesn’t seem to have deflated his spirits, jokingly orbiting around them with a fist full of probably alien stinging nettles and schmoozing his way through the team as a joke. ❛ knock it off. ❜

     keith isn’t having it. not for as many times and his teammate seeps into his personal space from where he’s perched next to shiro, who should probably say something before lance gets a second red-coloured bruise for his troubles. but when he doesn’t, and lance doesn’t let up until keith is boiling from the bother, he sets his shoulders square and straightens, sick of all the room being hogged on their couch. ❛ fine. you get rid of that stuff after. ❜

     maybe he doesn’t think this the whole way through. but he doesn’t have to. lance should have been paying more attention to where his wreath was flying, keith’s stubborn knuckles raising up to the underside of shiro’s chin, turning completely away from lance’s orbit and planting his mouth against the black paladin’s instead. barely much, a two-second thing that passes through his head like some kind of power-move, or just something annoying that throws the others gag for a loop ━━━ and then he realises, fingers tilting the crease of shiro’s jaw, and how close their noses seem to bump, and how looking anywhere but in the wide and captured eyes is IMPOSSIBLE. 

     keith’s brain almost locks up like one of pidge’s crashed computer systems.

   Yeah, they are, and Shiro doesn’t quite know how to work through that part right now, when it feels like they’re still a million miles from bed. Keith’s hand, however, is a familiar and open invitation, one that Shiro takes gladly and pulls, pulls until Keith is caught in his orbit and hurtling closer. It’s so easy to envelop him, to pull him tight until they’re pressed flush, to drop his head against Keith’s hair and inhale. It’s soft, still smelling mildly of shampoo, and Shiro remembers that he should probably shower soon, too. Maybe tomorrow morning, when he’s had a little more time like this.

   He’s aching for it, but his biggest worry is that Keith is just… not saying anything about it. That Shiro’s not giving him enough, when he’d give him everything if he had the time. It’s a little ridiculous to uphold himself to those expectations in the middle of a war, he realises this, but… it’s Keith. He needs Keith to know that he has him, has this, even in war.

   ( Maybe part of him just wants a small reminder that he still has Keith too, even in war. ) “…You think this is ever going to slow down?” He could be talking about the elevator, or the Galra invasion, it’s anyone’s guess. Both are valid lines of thinking.

     there’s a second or two, a ‘ what do i do with my hands ‘ kind of moment that keith’s been getting over since they started with this, before he lets himself be cradled, arms wound around shiro’s upper half to keep him there, keep him grounded if he needs it. his eyes almost slip closed, and they’re grateful for the excuse to rest for a moment, after the span of long days and longer nights. there’s the smallest little huff against shiro’s shoulder, like a laugh, but less. ❛ for us? i kinda doubt it. ❜

     maybe that isn’t a bad thing. keith isn’t sure what he’d do in the quiet. figure out the mess inside his head, apparently. the months back on earth that weren’t about garrison cleanup or the aftermath of war━ they were spent realising what the tangle in his throat meant when shiro smiled at him, and why he felt like he was INVINCIBLE in his space, even after everything they’d beaten beyond the stars. if there wasn't the downtime, maybe he never would have noticed. maybe they do need the universe to slow down on it’s self-inflicted destruction.

SEND “MISTLETOE KISS” TO CATCH MY MUSE UNDER THE MISTLETOE.

     it’s not exactly how he figured any kind of ‘ family ‘ thing would work out for him. the memories of his father holding him up by the waist to decorate the tallest branches of the tree, and tripping over tinsel snags barefoot in the living-room. he’d kind of thought━ those were all he’d ever get to go on for a while.

     but keith blinks, slow, comforted, at the press of his mother’s mouth against his temple, having gone through the motions of explaining what the plant hung off the door-frame ( lance, he’s blaming lance ) means in the human language, the holiday cheer. not a conversation he thought he’d ever have to give. anybody. when shiro shows up in her place, he feels some contented tug to explain it all. ❛ i was━ telling her what the mistletoe means. the galra have some sort of plant like it, but, they don’t have the same kind of customs we do. go figure. ❜

     he stalls, for seconds, the obvious going over his head. literally. then, the smile dips, a noise signalling the completion of his brains dial-up tone, and where they’re both standing in the door-frame. ❛ oh. we don’t━━ ❜

     don’t what? count when it comes to millennia’s worth of tradition? is it even right to have a first kiss under mistletoe by accident? he mulls over it, expression moving out of surprise. there’s the barest heat by the corners of his eyes, but he can pass it off as….mistletoe induced hay-fever. sure.

     maybe it should feel more jarring, shiro of all people. it should feel weirder than it does, and keith half remembers something buried deep in the nooks of his rib-cage, tucked into the corners of his heart. naive and barely blooming, from some time years ago that he’d let himself forget about. something, without any sunlight or water, that still somehow blossoms. whatever it is, it twinkles past in the moment.

     there’s a breath through his nose, the slight crinkle of his brow, and he steps forward, crowds just into shiro’s space and knocks their lips together, like that was easy like━━  piloting a lion or━━ saving the world. he should probably wonder how long is too long, or what it means when his eyes are closed, or if he’s supposed to hear his own heartbeat in his head, or notice if shiro’s always ran this warm since he’d met him. for some reason, he can’t think about anything at all.

     it ends after… however long it takes it to end. maybe shiro’s eaten up all his words, since there doesn’t look to be anything left coming out of keith’s mouth, other than the slow, gentle exhale he didn’t know he’d been holding, which feels heavier in his lungs than any crushing weight of the nothing in space. he idles in shiro’s orbit, eyes catching in a stare, and decides wondering about if he should go, can be a thought left for afterwards. in a minute. later.

   “No?” It comes off as a question and Shiro winces, eyes cutting across the elevator like he’s looking for an out only to remember he’s momentarily trapped to face whatever garbage just came out of his mouth. Sure, he can be a Captain and he can make all the big decisions and command an army, but he’s still a person. He’s allowed a few personal mistakes from time to time, right…?

   “I guess—I guess I’m just thinking about the fact that we don’t actually get a lot of time to ourselves and I don’t want you to feel like you have to hold on to things you want to talk about because you think I’m too tired or too busy to address it.” Which is literally the same exact thing he’s doing, but Shiro never claimed he wasn’t a hypocrite. Wow, this is quickly turning into a bit of a mess and if Shiro could still astral project and roll his eyes at himself, he would. “Am… I making any sense?”

     there’s a stall, one that keith spends watching him and his attempts to understand his own words. the confusion leaves, and keith looks for all the world ( as small as their elevator is ) just like himself. sure, focused. at least, self-certain.

     ❛ yeah. i get it. ❜ he isn’t wrong, there are days where the closest they can get to personal is the half-awake goodbyes before meeting prep, the bleary kisses that might just be one sided, while the other tries to remember what ‘ have a good day ‘ feels like to pronounce around morning breath. or even less, when they pass by in the halls mid-conversation with somebody else, and barely manage the knock of their fingers together.

     keith hadn’t thought about it much. only now, recalling it, he feels the small pang of lonesomeness. but it’s stupid to feel it now, for a past moment, when shiro is right here in the elevator with him at arms length.