#smoochathon

Standing between the pair, he has a child hanging from either arm, alternating them as he lifts them up in a show of strength and silliness. His own smile bright, so much so it’s almost blinding as he laughs, throwing his head back with his mirth. It shakes his shoulders as he pulls both arms up, earning him a squeal of elation that she can hear through the window pane.

Burning pride ignites inside her chest, leaving nothing in its path except the feeling that has tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

As life had had it, Gajeel had come to her a darkened thing. Dealt a bad hand, he’d let himself believe that his life was forfeit to his circumstance, but Levy had known better. She’d always known better. And even in his darkest times, she’d always held onto hope that as long as she believed enough for the both of them, it would all work out.

And now, she knows it has.

Before her, with their children tucked in his arms against his chest now, Gajeel is the man she always knew he would be.

The dragon slayer starts to pepper the twins’ faces with kisses as they swat at him playfully. That only makes him kiss harder, laughing into their skin as his arms tighten just enough to squeeze.

With her own smile large and wide, Levy turns away from the scene, pushing open the front door without hesitation as she tears into the home and jumps at her family without announcement.

“Mama!” The twins shriek as she feels small hands grab at her shirt, tugging at her as Gajeel chuckles and loosens his grip on the kids so she can take them in her arms. They’re warm against her skin as they mirror their father and begin to press quick kisses all over her cheeks.

Levy sees the crinkles at Gajeel’s eyes as he smiles at them, turning his garnet eyes warm as she steps toward him.

“Shrimp,” he says lowly, a greeting balanced on the tip of his tongue. She never gets to hear it as she presses up on her toes, snatching the words from his mouth as she pushes a burning kiss against his lips.

There’s so much she could say to him about how proud she is of him, and of their life, but she hopes that for now, this is enough.

Levy nips at his lip playfully before pulling away, cheeks heating at the sound of the twins’ disgusted chorus of ew’s.

“I missed you too, Lev,” Gajeel breathes, reaching between their kids and cradling her cheek within his palm as he stroked a line across her freckled cheek. The moment is sweet and tender, a picture of everything she knew that they could have, and suddenly the weight of all her insecurities dissipate with the heated touch.

That everything he felt, from the burning fires that had razed his insides with Keith’s touch to the serene flutter of his pulse when his mind lingered on that four lettered word, hadn’t been his own to feel?

Shiro loves Keith.

Shiro deserves Keith.

But why can’t he?

Kuron’s grasp on Keith’s shoulder clenches harder as he pushes his forearm further down onto his throat, earning a strangled sound that pushes itself between them painfully. It lodges itself between his ribs as he lets his eyes drop down to Keith’s lips, which are moving around words he can’t hear over the roar of his own heart.

It’s a lie, but it wasn’t his lie to start.

A startled sound hits the back of his throat as he captures Keith’s gasp between his teeth, licking a heated line along his bottom lip in question. He feels the way Keith tenses beneath him, struggling up against the arm pressing down into his neck for just a moment before his mouth is opening beneath his.

It’s pliant and welcoming, heated by fires started by the lightning that he knows runs beneath Keith’s skin. He’s always known he carried the strength of a southern storm, but he’d never truly known it until now as he basked in the oppressive push of the tempest. Kuron can feel the battering force of rain and hear the solemn howl of wind as it shakes him to his very core.

Losing himself to it, he breathes Keith in, collecting all the pieces of him that aren’t even his to know. He hoards the sound of his moan; the ache of his nails biting into his nape; the heated rush of his breath against his cheek.

It’s a lie, Kuron knows, because of who he is. Because of who he isn’t.

It’s a lie.

But it isn’t.

A sharp gasp tears itself violently from his throat, filling his mouth with the copper taste of blood as he finds himself pushed back. Pain and fear culminate at the midpoint of his elbow and shoulder as he falls to his knees, metallic arm landing beside him with an ugly sound.

“Keith,” Kuron breathes as he stares up at him through his bangs to see the look of sorrow that has melted Keith’s stare into midnight pools.

It isn’t a lie.

But it is.

I love you.

Darkness twists the edges of his vision as he feels the floor beneath him shake and tremble as the facility starts to crumble around them. It’s heavy and it pushes down on his shoulders and makes it hard to breathe.

The last thing Kuron sees before everything goes black, is the tear that rolls down Keith’s cheek.

I love you.

“What are you doing, Gildarts?” Silver’s voice comes from behind him as he raises his hand again to line up for another throw that never gets the chance. Though low, it still makes him jump as a loud, shocked sound erupts from his throat. Dropping the pebble, Gildarts turns on his heel in time to catch the bright light of laughter that lightens the color of Silver’s dark eyes.

It would have been enough to make his heart rate spike if his sudden emergence from the shadows hadn’t done that already.

“Being romantic?” It’s more of a question than an answer as he scratches at the back of his head sheepishly, offering a small, apologetic smile to the other man.

Sighing loudly, Silver shakes his head as he rolls his eyes as he closes the distance between them.

“It looks to me like you’re trying to be sneaky,” his voice is low and burning, filled with smoke and embers as he raises a careful hand and presses it just above Gildarts’ heart. He wonders if he can feel the way it thrums at the contact.

Hell, he wonders if he can hear it.

“Just didn’t want to get caught by the kids is all,” Gildarts says, heat collecting in his cheeks as his eyes flick down to where Silver’s hand it held, riding the waves of his deep breathes. A loud clicking fills the air as Silver tsks at him, curling his fingers into the fabric as Gildarts’ shirt.

“The kids fell asleep hours ago,” his voice dips even lower as he tugs on the fabric, pulling Gildarts closer without any fight. “Now you’re just late.”

There’s barely anytime to brace himself for the sudden sparks and flames that erupt across his skin as Silver’s lips crash into his. They lick the inside of his skin and fill his chest until the fire is all consuming and he’s burning with it as he hums into the kiss, pressing deeper until it hurts.

He sure does love to burn.

Teeth nip at his bottom lip, pinching it sharply and making him gasp before Silver moves back with a mischievous glint in his eye. Gildarts doesn’t miss the way his hold on his shirt only tightens.

“Any chance I can make it up to you?” He breathes, unable to focus on anything else beside the quirk of Silver’s full lips and the way it grows into a fully realized smile at the question. It only makes his heart stutter louder as Silver tugs him forward once more.

Shiro’s fingers thrum soundlessly on the drab, itchy fabric of the hospital blanket that covers Keith’s unmoving form as his chest rises and falls beneath it with steady breaths that he can’t stop counting.

The doctors say that it’s just a mild concussion and bruising, something that he should be thankful for.

Shiro says they’re full of shit.

If it was just a mild concussion and bruising, Keith wouldn’t still be sleeping two days later.

You know better than anyone that Black takes a lot to pilot, Allura had said just hours before, and her words continue to linger over him even after she’s gone.

They’re true, but that isn’t the point.

Shiro’s angry.

But really, he’s angry at himself. All this time, and as many times as he and Keith had saved each other, yet he’s never said it.

The three words that circle his dreams like water around a drain, round and round, pulling him into his deepest dreams and bringing him back into the light time and time again.

Yet he hasn’t uttered it. Keith knows. He has to know.

But that just isn’t the case, is it? Because if Shiro knew that for certain, he wouldn’t feel the angry talons of anger as they tear into the meat of his chest and still his breath with each fade of the heartbeat on the monitor beside Keith’s bed.

With a growl, Shiro pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes, hoping the pressure will help him focus on anything else besides everything he almost lost the chance to say. Stars sparked at the back of his eyelids, swimming in tears as he tries to force himself to breathe.

In the silence, he hears the soft shift of skin against fabric, and the pained sound of a throat clearing, but he still doesn’t look up. This isn’t the first time Keith has made like he’s awakening.

Or the second.

Or the third.

Hope makes his heart flip still as the soft sounds continue, stopping altogether when he feels warm fingers around his wrist.

“Shiro.” His name is barely there, just a rasp of breath as Keith feebly pulls at his hand. A gasp tears through the room, loud as a chainsaw as he pulls his face from his hands.

It isn’t until much later that he realizes that it was his own.

“Shiro,” Keith says again, tongue fighting for those two syllables, but eyes bright with clarity. In his gaze, Shiro knows if he gets close enough, he’ll be able to see every galaxy he has yet to explore.

But he wants to.

God, does he want to.

Anger rears its ugly head again as Keith’s stare softens and his fingers remain around his wrist, pressing firmly into his pulse. He doesn’t deserve that look.

Not yet.

“Shiro,” Keith starts, voice growing stronger around its disuse before he’s cut off by the crash of Shiro’s mouth against his. Impulse pushes him closer and tangles his fingers in Keith’s hair as he feels him shudder beneath him. The grip on his wrist tightens before falling away, only to be replaced by arms around Shiro’s neck as Keith pulls him closer still.

He could have lost this, he thinks as his mouth parts around a stuttering sob, tears slicking his cheeks.

It’s sloppy and wet, a kiss undeserving of any kind of confession, but it doesn’t even feel like his body is his as he tries to pour everything into the space where their bodies meet.

“Shiro,” Keith gasps when he finally pulls away, eyes the color of a dying day as he drags a hand away from his neck to brush away the tracks of Shiro’s tears. Comfort radiates from Keith in a way that he knows he should emulate, after all, he wasn’t the one that nearly died saving the universe.

“I almost lost you,” Shiro says, words quaking wetly as fresh tears fall, dragging wet lines down Keith’s fingers and over the back of his hand.

“Shh,” Keith hushes, leaning forward slowly to press a kiss to his cheek, catching a newly fallen tear with his lips. “I’m right here.”

It holds the same weight of a promise as Keith pulls away only to press another soft kiss to his other cheek before he pulls him in, holding him close as Shiro’s tears fall against his throat.

Through everything, Keith’s still the one saving him.

Moments pass as they stay this way, clutching onto each other and just breathing in until his crying quiets and all he feels is the steady thrum of Keith’s heart against his.

“I love you,” Shiro finally says, running the words along Keith’s pulse. A hum vibrates against his cheek as Keith nods against his hair, his own answer tempered just as smoothly.

“Keith,” Shiro manages as he trains his eyes ahead, searching the screens until he sees the quick movement of white and red cutting across the desert sand. Dark hair twisted with the ferocity of his speed as Keith pushed across the earth with his focus set on the Atlas.

It’s singleminded and unwavering, a testament to what Shiro loves about him most.

“I’m coming,” Shiro says before snatching the out his earpiece, slamming it down onto the console before turning on his heel. If any of the crew members notice their captain tearing from the ship, they don’t say anything as his footsteps echo through the halls before transforming into the hard slap of his soles against hard, cracked dirt.

They meet in the middle in a hug that crushes what air he has left out of his lungs as his hands find Keith’s hair, tangling within its waves as he holds onto him as if he might get away.

At one point and time, Shiro had thought he would.

But that was so long ago. In a different time, and in a different place.

This is here, and now, and they’ve done it.

Moisture collects at the juncture of his throat and shoulder where Keith is burying soft sobs and nonsensical words as his fingers clutch at the back of Shiro’s uniform.

“Shh,” he hushes, not daring to raise his voice above a whisper as he loses himself to the feel of Keith’s burning breath on his pulse. They line up in an erratic rhythm, only evening out after several moments wrapped within each others arms and the soft glow of victory.

“We did it,” Keith’s voice tickles before he pulls back, capturing Shiro’s gaze with his own tear stained stare. “We saved the world, Takashi.”

The enormity of the statement truly hits then as he drags a breath of the dry desert air down into his lungs, reveling in the burn if only because he was alive to do so. Through crashes that had stolen his life as he had known it; through adventures that had taken them lightyears from home; and through fights that had left them both scarred, they had done it.

Loosening his grip on his hair, Shiro slid his palms along the sharp diamond cut of Keith’s jaw and ran a gentle thumb across the healed burn on his cheek. It pulls something soft from Keith’s lips as he pushes into the touch, his eyelids fluttering at the contact. With care, Shiro leans down slowly before brushing a kiss across the raised skin, lingering long enough to elicit another sweet sigh.

“Yes,” he breathes as he pulls away, looking down at Keith. This close, he can count the stars that are trapped in his eyes. “We did.”

The victory burns itself into his skin as a full crescent smile breaks across Keith’s face before he slides a hand to Shiro’s chest, fisting it into his uniform. With a sharp tug, he presses that smile against his.

They did it, Shiro thinks as he opens for Keith.

“About how I’d like to be literally anywhere else,” he says lowly as he drags a finger lazily across the computer screen ahead at him, pulling up another file with even more words that stopped making sense hours ago.

“You mean you don’t like being here?” Shiro’s voice vibrates through Keith’s back, filled with weighted implication as he leans forward to tap at the same screen. The meaning is clear.

Here, didn’t refer to the planning room.

A low chuckle swings from his lips as he shakes his head, tickling Shiro’s cheek with it as the older man pulls back from the offending strands but not too far.

“I mean, here, isn’t so bad,” Keith says as he closes the screen Shiro had opened just to make him lean in again. “But you know what I mean, Captain.”

Filling the newly minted title with as much heat as he can, Keith revels in the way it makes Shiro tense at his back. At first, he’d tried to pretend he didn’t like to hear him say it that much, but that had only lasted as long as it had taken for Keith to make him come as he breathed it in his ear.

Which, for the record, was just about no time at all.

“Keith.” Shiro says it like a warning as he pulls his hands away from the table and steps to the side, pulling his warmth away with him as he crossed his arms over his chest. He fixes him with a look that would be stern if it wasn’t made pliant by something heated.

“Shirogane!” Iverson’s voice cuts over the thrum of voices in the room, making them both jump as the commander motions Shiro over to where the other high ranked officers are. He feels the pass of disappoint as it turns his expression dark just long enough for Shiro to catch it before he tempers it.

“Go,” Keith says, shooing at him with a hand before turning his eyes back to that damned screen. The words fade into the bright light of the computer as he tries to focus on anything other than the stare on his face.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he follows up with a shrug when he hears Iverson call for Shiro again, impatience making his voice gruff. Keith can feel that pause and the hold of Shiro’s breath as he pauses a moment longer.

Then, with one easy motion, Shiro’s lips are brushing along his cheek, tickling the edge of his scar with a soft sigh. A sting of electricity jolts through him, stiffening his spine as his eyes widen. It’s closer to a caress than a kiss, and if it weren’t for the brush of breath, Keith thinks he would have mistaken it as that much.

It’s soft, and sweet, and as casual as a summer day.

Humming lowly, he leans into it, feeling his lids dip with the pressure before it disappears almost as quickly as it had appeared.

“I’ll be right back,” Shiro says under his breath with an easy smile that kickstarts his heart. And then, he’s gone, walking toward Iverson whose eyes have grown twice their size as he waits.

Even if Shiro told him every hour of every day, it still wouldn’t do the depth of his emotion justice.

It burns with the unending flame of starlight and he knows that it has burned since before they had come to be, and it will continue to burn until after they have gone.

It’s buried deep down within Shiro’s bones, so wholly a part of him that he can’t even pinpoint the moment he fell for Keith because he suspects that a part of him always has.

He loves him.

And he doesn’t tell him enough.

The realization pushes him forward and across the short distance of tabletop that separates them as he stills the words of Keith’s tongue. A soft, startled gasp parts his lips as his eyes grow wide just momentarily before he melts into the touch and presses closer.

Opening into it, Keith hums lowly, dragging hot lines over Shiro’s shoulders and over the back of his neck as he scratches his nails into the shaved hair at his nape in an effort to anchor himself.

This is another secret that only Shiro knows.

Keith is greedy. He wants everything, and he takes it, and Shiro is all too happy to give it as he runs the tip of his tongue hungrily along Keith’s bottom lip. It pulls the sweetest sound from deep in his chest as he pushes into him, turning the kiss into something meant for a darkened room, and not a sunny afternoon on the patio.

Fire runs through Shiro’s veins as he twists his fingers into Keith’s hair, angling his head back just enough to deepen the kiss before pulling away.

Shiro can’t help but admire the way the amethyst of his eyes is mired by pupils blown wide, the crushed petal blush of his kiss bitten lips, and the flush of his cheeks turned pink by want and the sun above.

God, does Shiro love him.

Running a careful thumb across the high arch of Keith’s cheek, Shiro can’t help but smile.

“What was that for?” Keith asks, voice breathless and eyes bright as he leans into the warm touch of his palm. Leaning forward, Shiro presses a softer, sweeter kiss to his forehead before pulling away completely.

Once upon a time, he might have been scared of what that all meant, and what all he would need to give up to hold onto it. Of course, it wasn’t until he’d found it that he’d realized true love meant he wouldn’t need to lose anything at all.

“You’re thinking loudly,” Keith mutters lowly, pushing the words over the ball of his shoulder as he lets his lips run the course of a particularly thick scar. His words are caught between a statement and a question as he puts pressure into a peck to his pulse.

“Am I?” Shiro says around a low chuckle as he urges Keith closer, pulling him up onto his chest so he’s looking down at him. The icy glow of the moonlight catches in his onyx waves as they fall around his face, still slightly dampened from their previous activity. That same light makes Keith’s skin glow in a way that makes him seem delicate.

Shiro knows better than anyone that he isn’t, having had a front row seat to just about every precarious situation that he’d conquered over the years. Keith is the strongest person that he’s ever known. But here and now he looks breakable, soft skin turned to softer starlight.

Reaching up, Shiro cups his cheek and pulls a small purr from him.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Keith breathes into his palm as he turns to press a kiss to his life line, igniting it with a blaze that races through his wrist and up his arm, following a path of blood and vein to his heart.

“I love you.” And that’s just it isn’t it? He loves him. It’s as easy and simple as those three small words.

He loves Keith.

In a way that creates whole new solar systems that burn his insides as he feels Keith bury his smile in the flush of his hand.

“Is that all?” He hums, pulling away with bright eyes as thumbs at Shiro’s chin, admiring the faint ghost of a smile that tugs at his lips before leaning in close.

“That’s all,” Shiro smiles as their chests meet. Letting the moment hang between them, he revels in the way their breaths mirror each other in the easiest way.

Because that’s how it had always been for them.

As easy as breathing.