#warringstardust

   “Then feed from me!” Shiro’s not sure where the explosive suggestion comes from, half-riding on a snarl, but he realises the moment he says it that he’d prefer it over any other option. He knows he’s been emotionally messy towards Keith in the past couple of weeks, and that the number of emotionally people at their house is steadily increasing, but he needs to behave like he has a head on his shoulders sometimes.

   The less opportunity Keith has to accidentally kill someone decreases the likelihood of the entire Holt pack raining hellfire down on him. Vampires are strong, but not when they’re singled out by an entire pack, and Shiro would love to keep the bloodshed at a minimum.

  Keith groans loudly. He doesn’t have time for this.

 But it’s not like he has much strength as it is. UV lights and a potent mixture from an old hunter recipe that smoked in the air had kept him locked tight in the room Lance had found him in. Now they were out and trapped in another with Keith’s head finally starting to clear. He’s been in a delirious state for so long that things still seem a little fuzzy even as he forces himself to stand.

 He reaches, fingers gripping tight around Lance’s shoulder, and he pulls him back away from the door he was standing guard by. This situation wasn’t something Lance needed to deal with. This was Keith’s problem, an old grudge that came down from his original coven, and the others had no business with it. Lance could escape on his own, and no one would think to pursue him. If he’s caught helping Keith it will not only put Lance’s life in danger but the rest of the pack as well.

 That’s the last thing Keith wants.

 “You need to leave, now,” Keith hisses, and he can already feel his knees start to buckle. He hates that he has to use his other hand on Lance’s shoulder to keep himself steady, “this isn’t your fight. You don’t owe me anything. Go, leave, and you’ll stay alive.”

listen, lance doesn’t like vampires.

he’s got his reasons - he’s got a stupid long list of them.  but keith isn’t representative of all of them, and he’s actually been halfway decent to lance and, past all that - ❛ no i don’t owe you anything.  but i owe shiro, and he’d be pissed off if you died. ❜ 

that’s not exactly true either, but lance is scrambling for a reason that doesn’t directly involve himself here.  besides, keith doesn’t look all that great.  ❛ listen, we’re both getting out of here, okay? i can do a temporary spell that’ll make you feel like you have no pain, and no weakness.  it’s basically a high-powered adrenaline rush.  it’ll last long enough to get us out, and then we can get you some...farm fresh blood, or whatever the hell it is you need. ❜

he doesn’t give keith a chance to respond.  instead, he reaches up to loop his hands around keith’s wrists and closes his eyes.  ❛ et terram meam sibi per vim fluxus. ❜ he whispers it, squints his eyes open to watch the blue glow of his veins, the way it pushes through his fingertips, lights up keith’s.  he holds on for a second longer.  ❛ you’re gonna feel invincible.  you’re not.  now get us out of here. ❜

   It gets hard. For a long while, Shiro was the one who had the biggest sleeping problems on the ship, and he channeled his excessive waking hours the only way he knew how—being productive.

   But it’s not just him anymore. He’s not the only one plagued by anxiety and nightmares, and he’s not the only being chased from sleep by his own head.

   Sharing a bed with Keith pulls that reminder to front and center, but he wouldn’t change it for anything—if he has to be Keith’s sentinel in the dead of night, then that’s who he’ll be.

   “You’re okay,” he croons, his palm sweeping over Keith’s racing heart and settling right below his collarbone, holding the younger man flush against his front. It’s a careful balance to make Keith feel safe without making him feel too suffocated—he’s already earned himself one black eye for that, so he always makes sure that Keith has the means to escape if he needs to. “Nothing is going to hurt you. No one. You’re safe. You’re on the Atlas.”

   Shiro quickly discovers that Keith is a clinger.

   It’s not like they’ve never slept near each other before, but those were under different, more chaste circumstances. Maybe a cheek would end up smushed against a shoulder, or a spine would lean up against another spine.

   Keith admitting his feelings to him and Shiro returning the sentiment in kind seems to have peeled back some sort of arbitrary curtain that causes Keith to suction cup to him in the middle of the night, no matter what side he’s sleeping on, and somehow finagle a leg over his hips. Or his torso. Shiro wakes up in a chokehold one morning, Keith spooned up against his back with his arms tucked securely around his neck, his grip stubborn and petulant.

   Not that Shiro minds. He’d stay in bed with him all morning, every morning if he could—but rousing Keith from sleep and coaxing him to untangle himself is still as endearing as the first time from a week ago. It’s the sort of soft intimacy they both seem to be craving, whether it’s Keith’s vice grip in the morning, or Shiro’s hand tucked into Keith’s under a table in the middle of a meeting.

   The glass jar is the first to grab Shiro’s attention when he steps into his quarters with a soft hiss of the doors and an even softer exhalation from his lungs. Every aching thought for a shower gets shuffled to the back of his mind, and he crosses the room in only a few strikes to pick the card up off his desk.

   It’s cheesy, so cheesy, enough that Shiro wants to ask Keith where he got it so that he can buy a thousand of them and make sure everyone gets one. Upon closer inspection, the left inside flap seems to have a paw-shaped dust print smudged into the corner. One of the edges is bent. Keith’s signature is smeared.

   The card has earned its place on a shelf, so Shiro sets it aside for now and picks up the jar that’s been flickering in his peripheral, lifting it up to the light to turn it this way and that.

   He loves it.

   So much.

   If there’s one thing Shiro is grateful for, it’s the hum of the Castle Ship. He doesn’t think he’d be able to stand the ringing silence of space otherwise, crushing and ever-present around them, but it helps, having a home away from home. Helps having people who care about him outside of... his problems. At least he has a choice in that now.

   It’s that very choice that’s complicating certain things right now.g

   “Keith.”

   He can’t say he expected to find the Galra loitering around the observation deck, but that doesn’t mean he’s not relieved.

   “I’m back with your favorite Garrison oranges,” Shiro announces from the doorway of Keith’s hospital room, the colors of a telltale uniform slung over one arm. Kosmo sits at his side, waiting patiently, though there’s no telling what Shiro had to bribe him with to get him to sit so still.

   “You and Lance are doing a bang-up job of roping me into your shenanigans,” Shiro murmurs, brows pinched with concentration as he mops the blood from the cut in Keith’s cheek. “He always comes to me when you’ve been gone a couple days too long and you always mope when he’s not around.”

   Judging by Keith’s expression, he doesn’t appreciate the sting of the antibiotic ointment. Shiro wonders if Lance told Keith that he’s no longer stoppering his emotions around the Altean, or if he’s told Keith that he’s let his interests slip in casual conversation. ( Not so casual at the time. )