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“Erdan is one of our most promising young agents,” Kolivan says readily enough, although he sounds surprised Shiro is taking an interest. “We were delighted to locate him alive and well. He’d done some excellent work destabilising some of the Galran grip on the outer territories, but I believe he’s glad to be back in a more co-ordinated effort.”“Great,” Shiro says, trying to reformulate his enquiry away from the Blade’s life story, which he cares about not at all, and more towards the very familiar way he’s resting his hand on Keith’s shoulder, which he cares about quite a lot. That’s Shiro’s usual shoulder. Just watching them is making his palm itch. Keith laughs at something Erdan says. Shiro’s teeth ache and he stops himself clenching his jaw with a vast effort of will. “Did he and Keith work together before?” he says, congratulating himself on a very normal question. “No,” Kolivan says thoughtfully. “But they did spend time together on base. Hmm. The Galran term is sa forasa; I believe in your language the word is… boyfriends?”Erdan is standing very close to Keith now. Keith is smiling up at him, his small, quirking, real smile, the one Keith hardly ever lets out around anyone but team. “Oh,” Shiro says. “Yeah. That’s the word.”***Shiro tries very hard to be a good man, but he knows he’s also a difficult one. He’d figured out young that if he was going to get the things he wanted, he’d have to fight and fight for them and never let up: he wasn’t going to miss out on anything at all he should’ve been able to achieve because of self-doubt, or his disease, or other people trying to coddle him. He’d thrown himself full tilt at everything and not backed down, not even when it killed him.This isn’t like that. Keith isn’t Shiro’s. He’s a good man himself - a great man - and he can do what he wants, be with whoever he chooses. It’s really not acceptable for Shiro to be hanging around the edges of this week’s Friday-night party (a new Garrison tradition aimed at just getting as many people together as possible to make friends, test the latest products from the competing shady brewing and distilling operations on the premises, and celebrate still not being dead) and sulking about Keith having gone off and got himself a boyfriend while Shiro was kicking his astral heels in the void.The Blade hit a hundred operatives located or recruited this week, almost all of them now on-planet at Krolia and Kolivan’s new base in Keith’s old desert shack. Always happy to have a theme, this week’s party is commemorating the occasion with festively lavender disco lighting, a purple drink (“Blackcurrant,” Iverson had said as he handed it to Shiro, looking shifty, “mostly,”; Shiro hadn’t gone near the Blades’ own contribution, which tasted like gas and had about the same effect on humans) and the terrible 2060s club music that Krolia had apparently imprinted on when she’d been here the first time. Almost all of the Blades are tearing up the dancefloor in appreciation, punctuated by the odd breakout of screaming when Kosmo gets overexcited and teleports someone away from the bottom row of some complicated group lift. Somehow the dancing makes their skin-tight suits more obscene than ever. Keith’s wearing his old Blades uniform as a mark of respect, which has sent Shiro back to Iverson for several top-ups already. The rest of his many drinks this evening have been courtesy of noticing that Erdan’s thick tail is strong and prehensile enough for him to do some weird pogo move with it; he’s still out there now, bouncing up and down the dancefloor like a nightmare grape.Another half hour should fulfill his captainly duty. He grimly takes another swig of his drink, and promises himself the fourth most depressing jerk-off session of his life once he’s safely back in his quarters.“Hey,” Keith says, sidling up. He’s smiling and sweating and Shiro offers him his glass, helplessly watching Keith’s pink tongue chase a lividly purple drop down his chin.“Having a good time?” Shiro says.“Up until I drank this rotgut,” Keith says. He doesn’t sound too cut up about it. “It’s good to see Krolia and Kolivan taking a break.”“Yeah,” Shiro says. Talking about them is nice and safe, and he knows that if he guides Keith onto how they can do more to integrate the new-look Blades into Voltron’s strategic thinking and the Coalition’s work Shiro could monopolise him for another hour, easily.He takes a deep breath. It’s supposed to be a party, and Keith is seeing his boyfriend, or once-boyfriend, for the first time in months in their time, years in Erdan’s. Shiro can’t keep him here talking boring work stuff for another hour. He wonders what Erdan and Keith have in common, apart from big shiny swords. Keith’s known Shiro far too long and far too well for him to have any glamour left; Marmoran agents probably don’t fall over getting off their hoverbikes after they lose races, or need their backs rubbing while they throw up after nightmares, and they definitely don’t smack Keith around facilities full of their factory-setting clone bodies and then try to chop his face off.“It’s great to see their numbers up,” he offers. “You know some of them, right? Some survived the Druids’ vendetta?”“More than my mother expected,” Keith says. He looks for her instinctively in the crowd, waving when he finds her, and it gives Shiro a bittersweet pleasure to see: a family, more than one place vying to have Keith call it home, a job where his skills are valued and his leadership respected; it’s everything he ever wanted for Keith.He doesn’t seem inclined to mention Erdan on his own. Shiro steals his drink back, swallows the last three mouthfuls with a wince at the burning sensation sliding down his oesophagus, and says, “I saw you talking to that guy, there. Erdan?”Keith stiffens. Almost imperceptibly, but Shiro sees it. He hopes Erdan is learning to read him well enough to take care of Keith the way he deserves: there’s so much he doesn’t say. “Yeah?” he says cautiously.It hurts that Keith doesn’t want to confide in him, but it would be even worse to know something Keith obviously doesn’t want him knowing with Keith not knowing about it.“Look, Kolivan told me about the two of you,” he says bluntly.“Er,” Keith says. “I think it’s great,” Shiro says hastily. “It’s been a while since I - but we all like to have someone, right? He’s good-looking. He seems like a good guy.” He doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying - how would he know whether Erdan is a good guy or not, he’s never even met him, but Keith is looking surprised, his broad shoulders tensing in a way that’s very visible in the responsive Blades fabric, and Shiro breaks himself off to say urgently, “Hey. Keith -“He reaches out to grasp Keith’s shoulder, but Keith is already gone. “Wow, what’d you say?” Lance says, coming up behind him.“I don’t know,” Shiro says unhappily. “Give me that.” Lance squawks and tries to fend him off, but Shiro has height, reach, and giant Altean hand on his side and he steals Lance’s drink easily. “You’re too young to drink anyway. Fucking hell.”“Coran’s making his Pop-Pop’s nunville recipe,” Lance says reminiscently. “Nobody is more surprised I developed a taste for it than me.”It’s terrible, but potent. Shiro apologises to the nerve endings in his mouth, which the nunville seems to have sparked like an electric shock, and downs the rest.“You really did need that, huh,” Lance says, clapping Shiro on the shoulder, and Shiro leans into the offered sympathy with a clear and mortifying sense of how pathetic he’s being. “Seriously, though, what’s with Keith? Why’s he dressed like that? He’s not leaving for the Blade again, right?”Keith has left Shiro’s side and gone straight to Erdan’s, saying something to him with a sly smile and a sexy look from under his lashes; heartbreak aches in Shiro’s chest while the nunville mutinies in his stomach, liver, and upper intestine. All together he’s feeling pretty crappy.“We have to respect his choices,” Shiro says, his usual lengthy maudlin-drunk stage hitting all at once. He gazes over at where Erdan has taken off his mask, the better to murmur in Keith’s ear. “Their work is just as important as Voltron’s. If he wants to go be with the Blades we have to support him.”“Okay, buddy,” Lance says soothingly. He’s looking between Shiro and Keith with a weird expression on his face. Have his teeth always glinted like that, or is it just the mirror ball? Whatever, it doesn’t help Shiro’s internal rumblings.“I have to go now,” Shiro explains to him. “Enjoy the party.”***Shiro draws a veil over the next few minutes he spends in the bathroom, for his own dignity if nothing else. “Get it together,” he mutters at his reflection while he washes his hands. His hair is sticking to his forehead, darkened grey with sweat. He looks more dead than when he was actually dying; which he knows, courtesy of Lance, who had helpfully described Shiro’s Sleeping Beauty impression, until Keith kissed you, or just slobbered all over the healing pod or something.And Shiro had thought... but Keith had never made a move, and how could Shiro? He’d done enough to Keith without taking liberties, short of an utterly unmistakable sign they’d be welcome. Like a handwritten invitation, or Black skywriting it, or Keith showing up in his bed. Although to be fair Keith does already do that, but it’s usually to comfort Shiro out of a nightmare and therefore not very romantic. Rather than, just as a for instance, naked and making that weird intense face he makes when he’s very preoccupied either by piloting his lion or trying to beat Shiro in a hoverbike race, offering to fuck Shiro very slowly while telling him that patience yields focus, which is how he appears in Shiro’s more fevered imaginings.He’s not totally sure the nunville’s revenge is over. It’s still a bit early for the Captain of the Atlas to run away from the party, but he’s almost past shame this evening.As he leaves the bathroom he’s already got his route figured out, drawing on the intelligence he has of the habits of his friends to ensure he’ll leave with minimum fuss and maximum speed: he’d planned the infiltration of Sendak’s ship with less care.He’s foiled immediately. Erdan peels himself off the wall with a slinky move Shiro admits, bitterly, is very interesting, and says, “Hello.”“Hello,” Shiro says. He wonders if he can manage to throw up on Erdan, and then he wonders whether he’d get away with telling Keith it was an accident.“You’re Shiro,” Erdan says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”“Yeah?” Shiro says. Erdan’s tail taps him on the shoulder, then slides down his arm, twining sinuously round and off again, Shiro eyeing it carefully, until it coils around Shiro’s wrist. Is this some sort of tailed-person handshake he ought to know about? He wishes he’d paid more attention to Coran’s endless stories about every species he’s ever met, seen, or read about.“Great things,” Erdan says, meaningfully. “I’d love to get to know you better.”“... Yeah?” Shiro says. God, he’s going to have to get to know Keith’s boyfriend, isn’t he? Keith will be hurt if he doesn’t. He’s going to have to be nice. Maybe even double date. He’s going to have to find a boyfriend specifically so he can please Keith by going on double dates.Erdan’s smile slips a bit. “Yeah,” he says, and then, striving, flirting, “maybe we could go back to your quarters? And get to know one another better?”“What the fuck,” Shiro says, and yanks Erdan’s tail off his wrist, fury sweeping him. “You are way out of line and I’m -”Telling Keith?He doesn’t know how he can bring himself to tell Keith the guy he likes is a cheating asshole. The tumbling in his stomach is replaced by a lower, sullen nausea. He turns on instinct, looking for Keith, not wanting him to see anything that might look like Shiro was encouraging things, wanting to comfort him if he has seen anything, but he can’t find Keith with the Blades or with the paladins, and he doesn’t really mix with anyone else: he must have left.“Captain -” Erdan says, looking alarmed.“Fuck off,” Shiro says, and storms away, almost in a straight line.This calls for another drink. He swipes one from a passing cadet on tray-circulating duty and retires to a corner to consider his options.Nothing really springs to mind. Maybe he’s drunk too much. Or not drunk enough.He watches the dancing Blades for a few moments, his mind spinning like a car stuck in mud, and then it occurs to him. Krolia - she’ll know what to do. (He hopes she kicks Erdan’s ass. And lets Shiro watch.)It takes some hunting around, but Shiro is a determined man, and finally he sees her, slipping quietly into a storage closet. That seems weird, but maybe the mostly blackcurrants are getting to her too.He knocks on the door, then again, then louder.“Krolia?” he calls. “Are you okay? It’s Shiro.”There’s a loud crashing noise from the closet and Shiro opens the door, alarmed.And closes it again, horrified.“Sorry!” He shouts. “I didn’t mean to, um, interrupt. Sorry, Krolia!” He clears his throat. “Sorry, Kolivan.”He’s slightly too drunk to not think, good job, Kolivan, although luckily not drunk enough to shout that too. Even Shiro thinks Krolia is attractive and he’s gay, gay, gay. He assumes it’s because she looks so much like Keith, although he tries not to think about it too deeply.She steps out of the closet, smoothing her Blades uniform over her hips and tucking her hair behind her ear.“My apologies,” she tells his left ear, very formally. “You weren’t intended to see that.”“Oh no, please, my apologies,” Shiro assures her right shoulder. “You were in a… private storage closet.”“Keith doesn’t know,” she says. “So I’d appreciate it if you could -”“Keep it to myself, of course,” Shiro says, rashly, but really, he’d say anything at this point that might make this situation go away.“Thank you,” she says.“Oh, well,” Shiro says, ridiculously. “Er. Well, I think. Kolivan’s your, uh, sa forasa, I think that’s great.”“Good evening, Shiro,” she says, sounding furious. He hadn’t thought he’d pronounced it that badly; he jerks his head up and looks her in the eye; she gives him a stony glare that makes him shrink back and strides off back to the party, her shoulders high and proud.Well, that went horribly. He hadn’t even mentioned to her about Keith and Erdan, but he has a solid conviction that going after her for another shot at it will make him long for that time his physical being had been evaporated out of existence. No, it’s time for Shiro’s desperation move, his fuel injection, his best, last, only remaining hope.He slunks into the nearest corner, digs in his pocket for the special Ahmarian puppy chews he’s been hoarding since the last space mall they’d passed on the way home, and whispers, “Kosmo.”Kosmo blinks in front of him a moment later, eats the treat right out of his hand in one bite of fearsome jaws, and then, ungratefully, gives Shiro the most scornful look he’s received in months. Even though since he got back to Earth and military discipline he’s received really quite a lot.“Earth dogs don’t judge their people this way,” Shiro lies to him. Kosmo cocks an ear, dripping disdain.“I didn’t mean it, they do,” Shiro says pathetically. He drops to his knees and wraps his arms around Kosmo’s neck. He’s soft and warm and, depressingly, the most affectionate contact with anyone Shiro has had since Keith got out of the hospital, where he’d been extremely clingy with head injury and near-death-experience and Shiro had had to try very hard not to enjoy it.“Please take me home,” he whispers, and Kosmo huffs a friendly, disgusting breath over him and teleports him back to his room, sticking around long enough for another disdainful look to be the last thing Shiro sees before he topples onto the bed and goes straight to sleep with all his clothes including his boots still on.***“Did you tell Lance I’m gonna go back to the Blades?”Keith sounds combative, but when Shiro jumps and turns to face him his sharp features are softened with hurt. “No!” Shiro says, then thinks back to what of the conversation he can remember through the vaguely drunken fog and adds conscientiously, “although I can see why he’d think I did.”“Do you not think I should be in Black?” Keith says. “No,” Shiro says, alarmed. “God, Keith, no. Black’s yours, Voltron’s yours, you’re doing an amazing job.”Keith looks much calmer, but his voice still sounds small when he says, “And you want me to stay?”“Yeah,” Shiro says, his heart hurting. “I want you to stay.”“I’m not saying I won’t help if they need it,” Keith says judiciously. “But Earth’s our home.” He hesitates, his gaze searching Shiro’s; Shiro doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he knows he’s still showing all his sadness at the idea. “Everything I love is here,” Keith adds, subdued, and when Shiro pulls him into a wordless hug he clings. ***There’s something odd going on in at least one rec area of the Atlas at any given time and Shiro does like to try to find it when he can; sometimes his presence just stops whatever’s going on, for all he’s not trying to be a harsh captain, but a lot of the time it’s fine and he learns a little something about his crew for seeing them in more relaxed moments.And then sometimes it’s people he already knows, and he likes that too. It’s more relaxing than having to be Commander Shirogane all the time.“What are you up to?” he says, taking a seat in the bigger kitchen just off the paladins’ quarters, and Keith looks up at him and smiles. He waves Veronica back into her seat when she makes a vague gesture towards standing and saluting and Lance flaps a hand at him from where he’s got his head on his folded arms on the table.“Trying to see what we can translate of these Galran plans from the wreckage of Sendak’s ship,” Coran says, frowning over something on his tablet.Shiro glances at Keith. “Surely the Blades…?” he says tentatively. “Nothing wrong with some Earthlings knowing the language!” Coran says.“... Right,” Shiro says. Keith catches his eye and grins.He pulls out some of his own work to get on with, keeping one ear on the conversation. Veronica isn’t bad; Keith seems to be terrible, considering his parentage and time with the Blades; Lance isn’t even trying. Shiro gets more drawn into it than he intends, trying to help Coran out, and that’s how he gets tripped up, still with half his attention on the raw materials needed for the new generation of MFEs and catching Coran slowly sounding out a word he thinks he recognises.“Fora, I know that one,” Shiro says, then wants to kick himself. Coran looks surprised. “Um, well. I know - sa forasa?”“Gosh, where did you learn that?” Coran says, twirling his moustache at Shiro disapprovingly. “It’s not really one for polite company. And I shouldn’t think we’ll be seeing it in any Galra tactical handbooks!”“What does it mean?” Lance says.Shiro cringes back in his chair, regretting ever having opened his mouth. “What? I was just told it means… well, boyfriends.”“I wouldn’t translate it as boyfriends,” Coran says firmly. “That’s a committed relationship, yes? Sa forasa is more casual. But, er, intimate, yes.”“Oh, friends with benefits,” Veronica says. “Fuckbuddies,” Lance concludes. “Seriously, Shiro, who taught you that?”“Kolivan,” Shiro blurts, in shock.There’s a short silence. Coran coughs uncomfortably and says, “Well, that’s a matter between you, I’m sure, nothing wrong with -”“No!” Shiro says, dizzy with shame, but everyone is looking at him wide-eyed and no matter how mortifying it is to admit the truth, letting everyone - letting Keith - think he’s carrying on some kind of torrid liaison with Kolivan seems worse. He mumbles, “I asked him about Keith and Erdan.”“Wow, Keith’s fuckbuddies with Erdan?” Lance says. “Nice work, man! He’s pretty hot, for a Galra. And Veronica, I know you don’t anything about friends with benefits, please never talk about it again.”“Oh no, she’s seeing Paul from engineering,” Coran says, then at Veronica’s tolerant look adds slyly, “and his girlfriend,” and Lance splutters. Shiro summons up every bit of courage he’s ever had and looks at Keith, who’s staring back at him, his eyes wide. “He told me Erdan was your boyfriend,” Shiro says, apologetically and pitifully, the whole mess of the last week or so unrolling back in his memory with a veil whisked off it; and only then does he realise the true horror. “Oh my God,” he says, feeling faint. “Oh God, no. I told your mom I thought it was great Kolivan’s her fuckbuddy.”“Shiro,” Keith starts, and Shiro melts under the familiar, perfect warmth of Keith’s hand on his shoulder, the way Keith’s full attention is focused on him. Briefly. He can actually see the last couple of minutes sink in: Keith’s face crumples and he says in a helpless little voice, “Wait, what? Kolivan and my mom?”“I saw them at Friday’s party,” Shiro says and buries his face in his hands. “Way to impress your mother in law,” Lance says sympathetically, clearly having decided his own dramatic discoveries aren’t happening if he can just concentrate on Shiro’s. “My mom and Kolivan,” Keith says in a daze. “Wait, Lance, what?”“That’s why you were so upset about it, right?” Lance says to Shiro. “You thought that Erdan guy was Keith’s hot Galra boyfriend -““Um,” Shiro says, his whole being on fire. He really needs some kind of alarm signal that will trigger an automatic summons to an urgent meeting whenever he needs to escape: if only he’d thought ahead, he might not have had to finish this conversation. “- And you missed your shot,” Veronica finishes seamlessly. Shiro gives her a betrayed look. “My mom and Kolivan,” Keith says for a third time. Keith’s been through so much: in a way it’s interesting to find out that apparently this is what it takes to break him.“Keith’s getting a new daddy!” Lance coos and then jumps back as Keith bares suspiciously pointy teeth at him. “Hey, no fair! Shiro!”“Don’t ask me for anything,” Shiro says, “ever again.” He’s blaming all of this on the nunville.“What did I do?” Lance says, hurt. “Who’s this Paul, anyway? He on your crew?”“That’s why you asked me about Erdan?” Keith says, and Shiro’s attention is back on him, inevitably, always.“Yeah,” Shiro says.“I thought you wanted to fuck him,” Keith says, so quietly it’s almost to himself, looking lost. “I don’t want to fuck him,” Shiro says, deeply distressed. “I want to fuck you. I mean - I want to be your boyfriend. Not him.”“He’s not my boyfriend,” Keith says.“No,” Shiro says. “I mean, I guess I know that now.”“You - really?” Keith says. It’s almost the same way he says Form Voltron, that same intention and confidence and fierce joy, and his eyes when he looks up at Shiro are shining.“Yes,” Shiro says.“Yeah,” Lance and Veronica say in unison, and Shiro remembers their audience, which is watching them with considerable interest.“Could you leave?” he asks them.“No,” Lance says. “I’m taking notes from you two idiots. For what not to do.”“For when you ask Allura for sa forasa?” Veronica says evilly.“I beg your pardon,” Coran says, puffing up his chest protectively. “I’d better not hear he’s importuned the princess in any such manner! Also, that’s not how it’s used in a sentence.”“Get out!” Keith yells and he’s obviously far more intimidating than Shiro because they do go, trailing out with Lance anxiously trying to make up to Coran about his intentions regarding Allura. Shiro sends his arm to close the door behind them, and a tendril of thought into his bond with the Atlas to lock it. Firmly.“Keith,” he says, when he’s sure they’re alone, then gets stuck. It’s like his brain is re-processing the conversation a bit at a time, feeding it back to him in bite-sized chunks so he doesn’t decide to take the Atlas, find the nearest uninhabited rock, and live there forever, alone.“I want to fuck you too,” Keith says.“Okay,” Shiro says blankly.“Not right now here in the kitchen,” Keith says. “That would be - um. I want to go for dinner. And look at the stars. And fly together, just us -”He’s clenching his hands so hard on the edge of the table Shiro is worried for it and he reaches out and captures them softly with his. A moment later Keith is in his lap, a heavy warm armful, feeling as good against Shiro as Shiro’s imagined for so fucking long.“I want to be your boyfriend too,” Keith whispers, and Shiro gazes up at him, slides his hand up under Keith’s t-shirt just a little to caress his lower back; steadying him and encouraging him as Keith ducks down into a slow, deep, hopeful kiss.***“Shiro?” Keith says quietly, later; much later, when whether they have or have not, in fact, fucked in the kitchen could best be described as a matter of definition.Shiro shifts Keith a tiny bit more comfortably against his chest, cranes his head off the floor to kiss him, soaking in every moment, chasing every sensation. They’re boyfriends. He can touch Keith whenever he wants, and he intends to. “Yeah, babe?”Keith says, “You’re coming with me to kick Kolivan’s ass, right?”