[fic] VLD - Whither Thou Goest (Moneyverse)

[lysapadin]

Title: Whither Thou Goest

Characters/Pairings: Shiro/Keith

Summary: Keith gets into grad school, which means things are going to have to change, and probably they should talk about that.

Notes: Adult for smut. 6817 words. I suspect this will be a multi-parter, but each chunk should stand alone pretty well.

~~~~~~~~~~

Whither Thou Goest

There's a conversation they've been putting off having, but the envelope Shiro just pulled out of the mailbox says that they're not going to be putting it off for very much longer. It's a large envelope, heavy cardstock, and the return address has Marmora University's seal stamped on it in foil.

Yeah, that's not the kind of envelope that gets used for sending rejections, not if Shiro's any judge.

The rest of the stuff in the mailbox is junk. Shiro sorts through it to be sure and drops it into the recycling. The envelope he props on the living room table where Keith will see it once he gets home.

It feels like the afternoon ought to drag on and on while he waits for the end of Keith's shift to roll around, but there are ways around that. Reading is one of the most reliable ways Shiro knows to shut his brain up when it starts running what-if scenarios, so he reaches for the most absorbing of the books he has going and settles down with it. He even lets Potroast hop up onto the couch to sprawl against his hip—the no dogs on the furniture thing is a war he's losing and he's just about ready to admit defeat.

Reading does the trick. Finishing the novel takes most of the afternoon and keeps Shiro's mind off that broad white envelope. Taking Potroast for a meander around the neighborhood fills up the balance of the time before he can reasonably expect Keith home, though it's not so good for keeping him from turning over the possibilities. The house down the block already has another sign, Pending, pasted across the blocky For Sale sign out that's been out front for about two weeks now. The duplex on Hickory has a moving van out front. It's a good market to be selling a house—

Well. It's good to know that in case—just in case.

It's only a few minutes after they come in from their walk that Shiro hears Keith come in—the jingle of the car keys when he pitches them in their bowl and the thump of his shoes hitting the floor and his name as Keith calls it.

"In the living room," Shiro calls back.

Keith appears around the corner, tired but smiling to see him. He drops his bag at his corner of the couch and makes straight for Shiro, leaning down to kiss him hello. "Hey," he says as he slides himself into Shiro's lap.

He doesn't seem to have noticed the envelope. Shiro struggles with himself for a moment—no, the suspense is killing him. "Hey, yourself." He loops his arms around Keith's waist. "You got something in the mail."

"That's nice—wait." Keith goes from loose and warm in Shiro's lap to sitting bolt-upright, tense. "I got something in the mail?"

"It's on the coffee table—Keith!" Shiro barely manages to brace himself in time to keep Keith anchored when Keith does the thing where he forgets he actually has a spine and bends over backwards to snag the envelope off the table. "You could have gotten up, you know," he says when Keith curls himself upright again.

He could have saved himself the breath, because Keith isn't listening. He's staring at the envelope instead. It vibrates in his hands ever so slightly.

"Aren't you going to open it?" Shiro asks when Keith keeps staring at it.

"I—" Keith shoves it against Shiro's chest. "You do it, I can't."

"You sure?" Shiro asks, already taking the envelope from him.

Keith nods, face pale. "Just—let me down easy."

Shiro doesn't expect there to be any call for that, but Keith isn't going to hear any reassurances right now. He works his thumb under the flap and Keith makes a sound that's barely audible over the sound of tearing paper. "Oh my God," he says, right before he buries his face in Shiro's shoulder. "I can't look."

"I had no idea you had it in you to be this much of a drama queen." Shiro hooks his arm around Keith's back and shakes the packet of papers into his hand. "Dear Mr. Kogane," he reads; Keith whimpers. "We are very pleased to offer you a place in the incoming cohort of—"

That's as far as he gets. Keith snatches the letter out of his hand and scans it rapidly. "Holy shit, I got in." He looks up from the letter with eyes that are round with wonder. "Shiro, I got in."

He's so astonished, like he genuinely didn't think that there was any way Marmora U would take him. It's one of the most endearing things about him, how completely unconscious he is of his own brilliance. One of the most frustrating, too, at times, but mostly just endearing.

Right now it's very endearing. "I knew you would," Shiro tells him, so proud of him he can barely stand it. "I never doubted it for a second."

Keith smiles, lopsided and wry. "That makes one of us." He looks back down at the letter. "Holy shit, Shiro, I'm going to grad school."

Shiro tugs him back down against his chest so he can get another look at the acceptance letter. "You are, and you're going to be amazing." Pleased to accept, yeah yeah, deadline to decline, okay, orientation the week before classes, and there, jackpot: You will be entitled to an assistantship. Good, that will make some things easier, probably. Shiro hopes. "Do you want to go out to celebrate tonight? Or do you want to wait until the weekend? I bet I can get us a table at Epitome."

Shiro is pretty sure that Keith has a private system for deciding when he'll allow himself to be treated to a nice dinner out, but he hasn't had a lot of luck in figuring out what the criteria are. Shiro doesn't think that system is going to come into play for this—Keith just got accepted into a top flight graduate program, for crying out loud—but the moment of hesitation worries him until Keith wrinkles his nose. "Not Epitome. If we're going out, I don't want to have to eat a sandwich ahead of time."

It's a fair criticism, though Shiro was thinking in terms of one of the ten-course tasting menus. "It's your celebration, we'll go where you want to go."

"Uptown," Keith says. "Steak sounds good. But not tonight, I've got too much to get done."

"I'll get us set up for Saturday, then." Shiro wraps his hand around the back of Keith's neck, and Keith comes to him willingly, welcoming the kiss. "Congratulations. I'm so fucking proud of you."

Keith leans his forehead against Shiro's. "I don't think I could've done it without you."

"Of course you could have." Shiro plays with the fine hair at Keith's nape. "You don't need me to be amazing, because you already are."

"Mm." That's not a sound of agreement; it's a sound of I don't agree with you but I don't feel like arguing the point right now. It may be the best Shiro is going to get from Keith on this point, which is funny in a way—Shiro has never met anyone who is as full of sheer determination as Keith is, as fiercely dedicated to his goals or as single-minded in his pursuit of what he wants. But Keith is so relentlessly focused on what's ahead of him that he forgets to look back to see how far he's come.

Keith lingers a little longer, close enough to share the same air as Shiro, before he says, "You eaten yet?"

"Not since lunch."

"Yeah, me either." Keith straightens up and slides out of his lap. "Better get busy, then."

"You don't need to cook if you've got a lot to do tonight," Shiro tries, though it's almost certainly a lost cause. "We can order something—you did just get into grad school."

Keith snorts and shakes his head. "That chicken needs using up."

He heads for the kitchen; Potroast uncurls himself and follows him. Shiro does too, laughing a little at himself and the dog—wherever Keith is, that's where they both want to be. At least he's not going to sit at Keith's feet and will him to drop scraps of whatever it is he's got in mind for their dinner.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks as Keith roots around in the refrigerator. He's still not much of a cook himself, but he can follow directions and help with the prep work, anyway, which goes a long way towards making him feel better about the fact that Keith is so determined to keep him from buying their every meal from a restaurant.

Keith emerges from his rummaging with an armload of root vegetables. "Here, you can scrub these."

Shiro takes the vegetables from him and heads for the sink. "So what are you thinking?"

Keith goes back to digging around in the refrigerator. "Nothing special, just roasting that chicken."

Just roasting a chicken, the man says, like that's a thing anyone could do. Shiro grins at the potatoes he's running under the tap. It's nice that Keith is still optimistic about his potential as a cook after all the evidence that proves Shiro is only to be trusted with clearly defined tasks.

Keith joins him at the sink with the chicken—a whole chicken, because those are cheaper by the pound than chicken breasts, apparently. He peels it out of the plastic and shows no reluctance to shove his hand inside the cavity for—Shiro doesn't know what that package is and isn't sure he wants to know.

Maybe there's a reason he's never managed to learn how to cook. Ugh.

Keith borrows the tap to rinse the chicken off and carries on with whatever it is he's doing to the thing—"So how was your day?" Shiro asks to distract himself from the horrible sounds that come with the way Keith appears to be hacking out the chicken's backbone.

"Eh, just a Wednesday," Keith says absently. "Dr. Alforsson said to say hi and that you're overdue for coffee."

"Allura always thinks I'm overdue for coffee." On the other hand, is she's decided to deputize Keith to tell him so, she's probably right. "I'll give her a call."

Keith hums an acknowledgment and continues to work on the chicken. Shiro averts his eyes from that and focuses on the potatoes and carrots. "You want me to peel these?"

"Nah. Just cut them up. Chunks about this big." Keith holds his finger and thumb up to demonstrate. "You can do an onion about the same size, too."

That's easy enough, though he has to put the cutting board across the top of the stove. Keith is taking up a lot of the countertop with the chicken and an assortment of spices and cooking implements. That's a thing to remember for later—he hadn't expected to get a lot of use out of the kitchen back when he'd bought this place. Wouldn't have thought he'd ever spend as much time in it as he does now. Something larger, or at least with more counter space, might be nice to look for. Maybe with a bar that has stools for sitting and observing Keith—the cook—at work.

It's something to think about, depending.

By the time he's cut up the vegetables, Keith is done with the chicken. Or that's what Shiro assumes, at least until he watches Keith drape it across the tray of cut-up vegetables and go back to work on it with the oil and then the seasonings.

Shiro lets him get on with that and starts cleaning up after himself (minimal) and Keith (more extensive). Keith sticks the tray in the oven as he's wiping the counter down. "Set the timer for me? My hands are gross."

"Sure." Shiro turns the water on for him to wash his hands and switches places with him. "How long?"

"Thirty minutes to start with should be fine."

Shiro sets the timer, but… "Shouldn't it take longer than that?"

"Not really. I spatchcocked it, it'll cook faster that way."

"You what?" He knows he's not a cook and never will be, but he also knows that Keith is not above fucking with him, either.

"I spatchcocked it." Keith turns the water off and dries his hands. He sounds perfectly serious, but the corners of his eyes are crinkled up like he's fighting hard not to laugh.

"That's not a real word," Shiro decides. "No way is that a real word."

"Is so," Keith says over his shoulder as he retrieves—oh, one of the frozen bags of—Shiro thinks it's chicken broth?—from the freezer.

"It sounds like a deviant sex act, it can't be a real word."

Keith huffs a laugh. "I swear it really is a word." He pulls a saucepan out and scrapes the discarded bits of unidentifiable chicken bits into it. "If you think it sounds perverted, that's all on you." The pan goes on the burner and Keith grinds some pepper over its contents.

"I think you're fucking with me," Shiro says, taking the abandoned cutting board to wash.

Keith slants a glance at him, mouth quirked in a half smile. "I'm really not, but maybe later if you want."

"When do I ever not want?" The night's already set to be a good one, and this is just the cherry on top of that.

"You are kind of insatiable, old man," Keith agrees.

"Punk." Shiro presses himself against Keith's back and blows a raspberry into the curve of his throat; Keith jerks and laughs. "I don't hear you complaining."

"Damn right you don't." Keith twists enough to kiss him, quick and sweet. "I'm gonna need you to save it for later, though, because I'm not done with my brain for the day."

That's not unreasonable. Shiro doesn't let go of him but does settle his chin on Keith's shoulder. "Got a lot of homework?"

"Not too much. I made the minions do most of the shelving today and plowed through my readings."

"I can't believe that they let you get away with calling them your minions," Shiro says while Keith moves the chicken bits around the pan.

"Sharla says they're too afraid to ask me to stop." Keith doesn't seem to mind this at all—but then, he wouldn't. "I figure Kourtney-with-a-K will be the one who snaps first."

"Snaps how?" There are half a dozen ways Shiro can think of something like that going down, and not all of them are pretty.

"Tells me off," Keith clarifies; Shiro relaxes. "She's convinced I don't actually know any of their names." He stirs the stuff in the pan around. "I told Sharla she's the one to promote next year."

"Then she probably is." Keith certainly complains about her the least and is grooming her (in his own prickly way) for the responsibility. He'll be a terror in the classroom, if that's where Marmora sticks him for his assistantship.

"Mm." Keith lapses into silence, pushing the chicken bits back and forth. He's quiet the way he gets when he's thinking through something, so Shiro lets him get one with that, perfectly content to rest his chin on Keith's shoulder and clasp his arms around Keith's waist, even if his back isn't entirely happy with the way he has to stoop to make that happen.

When the stuff in the pan is brown and starting to smell like chicken, Keith peels the plastic bag off the slab of frozen broth, which goes into the pan too. Shiro guesses it's destined to become gravy.

As the pan sizzles with the way the broth starts to melt, Keith speaks up again. "MU is on the coast."

It's not, exactly, being located well inland, but Shiro takes Keith's meaning anyway. MU is several states away from the sleepy little midwestern college town of Arus. He's known that all along and thinks Keith has, too, though they haven't talked about it.

Looks like they're finally going to start that conversation.

"Yeah, it is," Shiro agrees.

Keith pokes the slab of chicken broth with his spoon several times, breaking chunks of it of the edges to fall to the bottom of the pan and melt faster. Over the racket of the spoon banging against ice and the hiss and sizzle of melting broth, he says, "I don't know how long-distance relationships are supposed to work. I've never been in one before." Lower, he adds, "Never been in any relationship before, really."

"Neither have I," Shiro points out. "Not like this. Not with anyone like you."

Keith grunts at that and pounds on the block of frozen broth that much harder, until the core of it breaks apart into slushy pieces.

Shiro takes a breath and squeezes Keith. "We'll figure out how to make this work, one way or another, but—I was thinking that we could skip the long-distance part."

"Skip the long-distance part." There's barely any inflection to the words as Keith repeats them, which doesn't give Shiro a lot to go on in terms of gauging his reaction.

In for a penny, in for a pound. "I can do consulting there just as easily as I can do it here. And I'd rather do it wherever you are."

Keith stirs the slushy mess of broth and chicken bits around in the pan. "But—the house?"

"It's a seller's market."

"You mean you'd just—sell it?" Keith sounds like he can't comprehend the idea. "It's your house." He says it the same way Shiro can imagine him saying, But it's your arm or It's your kidney.

"And it's a good house. I've liked living here. But I don't think I'd like living here without you."

"Shiro…" Keith stops there like he doesn't know what he wants to say. Shiro keeps his mouth shut and lets him figure it out. "You don't—you can't want to just—drop everything and move halfway across the country for me. It's too much."

Shiro could argue that it's no such thing, but that's not the way to go, not with Keith. "Why is it too much?"

Keith moves the spoon around the pan with enough energy to slop broth over the sides. "It just is, okay? You've got a house and—and—your friends, Dr. Holt and Dr. Alforsson, they're both here, what about them?"

"It's just a house, Keith. And Matt and Allura and I have lived in different parts of the world before. We're still friends in spite of that." Keith doesn't have that kind of history with anyone, as far as Shiro is aware. Changing placements had meant losing touch with foster parents and foster siblings and sometimes meant changing schools. That kind of thing makes having attachments difficult. Or so Shiro has gathered from the rare bits of his history Keith sometimes shares.

Keith is tense in his arms, swishing the spoon back and forth with unusual agitation. "You shouldn't have to give up on your whole life, though. Not for me."

"Keith, I don't know anyone I'd be happier to give up my life for than you." Shiro wants to make sure that part is absolutely clear. "But moving out to the coast with you is pretty much the exact opposite of giving up my whole life. More like maintaining it, really, because I'd miss you so damn much."

Keith hisses a breath through his teeth. "Stop doing that." Shiro utters an interrogative kind of sound. "That thing. Coming up with a counter for everything I say. I need to think and I can't do that if you're going to be like that."

He's not perfectly sure what Keith means about his being like that, but he can tell that Keith means it. "Okay. Change of topic, shut up, or something else?"

By the way Keith relaxes, however minutely, that's the right tack. "Set the table, maybe? And no booze, I'm—"

"—not done with your brain yet, I know." Shiro permits himself a quick kiss to the corner of Keith's jaw and goes to take the plates down from the cabinet as directed.

The meal is ready faster than Shiro would have thought it could be, even after a year and some of Keith demonstrating his culinary skills at every turn. Keith demurs the praise Shiro heaps on the chicken and vegetables and sauce, but his cheeks go pink all the same. That's reason enough to make sure to compliment his cooking at every turn, as far as Shiro is concerned.

It's a quiet meal, though—Keith is far away, lost in his thoughts, and Shiro is respecting his request to be allowed to think.

Shiro takes care of the clean-up after they finish eating, packing up the leftovers and doing the dishes. By the time he's finished wiping down the counters and the stove, Keith has ensconced himself in his corner of the couch and is frowning over a textbook and his notebook, working through a set of problems. Shiro leaves him to it and settles in with his laptop. There's Allura to message about coffee, Matt to reach out to as well, and then there are the spreadsheets he's been building to update now that he has the concrete numbers from Keith's acceptance letter to work with. It's a generous amount, as grad school stipends go, which—Shiro hopes—will make some things easier. If anything about this can be easy.

The numbers look good, anyway, even the most conservative set. Shiro noodles around with them for a while, checking on Keith over the top of the screen every so often. Keith is working more slowly than usual. More than once, Shiro catches him staring into space and frowning, tapping his pencil against the page as he broods.

When Potroast asks to be taken outside, Shiro escorts him out to the back yard and lets him roam around, sniffing at the bushes and investigating the trunk of the tree where his squirrel nemesis has its nest before finally deigning to relieve himself.

When they make it back inside, Keith has put his books and papers away and is lying in wait for him when he comes back to the living room. "Hey," he says, right before stepping right against Shiro and pulling him down for a kiss that knocks Shiro's breath out of him with its intensity. Keith grips the back of his neck and bites at Shiro's mouth until Shiro parts his lips and lets him invade as he rests his hands on Keith's hips and pulls him up against his body.

Keith groans against his mouth and hooks a leg around him, rocking himself against Shiro's thigh. He's already getting hard.

"I take it you're done with your brain for the night," Shiro says against his mouth.

Keith drops his hands down to Shiro's ass, his grip mercilessly tight as he rolls his hips against Shiro's thigh. "Yep."

Okay, then. Shiro dives in for another kiss, sliding his tongue against Keith's and pulling him up tight against his thigh, until Keith drops his head back with a gasp, color running high in cheeks, by far the loveliest thing Shiro has ever laid eyes on. He kisses the underside of Keith's jaw. "So, bed?"

"Yeah, bed," Keith agrees, the rasping edge of his voice putting a hot curl of satisfaction through Shiro—that's because of him.

It's a shame to have to turn loose of Keith so they can turn off the lights, but there's compensation for that. Keith hits the stairs ahead of him and starts stripping on the way, so Shiro gets to follow Keith's ass, clad only in boxers, up the stairs. Honestly, that's the kind of thing that could make a man believe in a higher power.

Keith shoves his boxers down and steps out of them at the top of the stairs. He's just quick enough that Shiro's hands close on empty air when he reaches for him. "Punk," Shiro tells him, only for Keith to grin over his shoulder and retort, "Try to keep up, old man."

"Fighting words," Shiro tells him, chasing him into their bedroom and closing the door on Potroast.

"Are they?" Keith drops himself onto the bed. He leans back on one hand and spreads his legs wide as he strokes the other down his stomach, through the trail of dark hair below his navel, and circles his fingers around his cock, playing with it idly.

"I don't think you really need me to answer that." Shiro elects to take his time peeling out of his t-shirt, his jeans, his underwear, conscious that Keith's eyes are on him and every inch of skin that he bares. The thought barely discomforts him anymore, though the way Keith is working that hand over himself, is getting harder with every stroke and every article of clothing Shiro removes, goes a long way towards helping with that.

"God," Keith says when Shiro is naked; his tone is openly appreciative. "Come here, Shiro."

"Pushy," Shiro says, but he joins Keith anyway, slides a knee onto the bed and plants a hand on Keith's chest to push him down. He follow Keith and braces himself over him as he kisses him again, brushing his mouth against Keith's once, twice, soft, nearly chaste. Keith permits that for a short time, winding an arm around his shoulders and rubbing his fingers through Shiro's hair, but he loses patience about as quickly as Shiro expected he would. He grumbles against Shiro's mouth as his hand goes heavy on Shiro's nape, pulling him down so he can seal their mouths together, can lick his way into Shiro's mouth to flirt his tongue against Shiro's. He pulls his knee up at the same time and wraps his leg around Shiro, rocking up against him, utterly shameless with the way he groans against Shiro's mouth.

Shiro groans too and bears down against him, against the heat of Keith's cock rubbing against his, hard and already a little slick. That could be enough—has been enough plenty of times in the past—but there's something a little wild in the way Keith is kissing him, like he's desperate for Shiro, so maybe not tonight.

Shiro reaches for the bedside drawer without pulling away from Keith's mouth, sucks on Keith's tongue while he gropes for the items he wants, and hums when he finds them. The answering sound from Keith is eager, especially after he hears the click of the cap when Shiro flicks the lube open to slick his fingers. He splays his knees wide, offering himself up before Shiro can even reach for him.

Sometimes they like to tease each other, dragging out the foreplay until they're both a little crazy with how much they want each other, but not tonight. Shiro pushes his fingers into Keith, neither slow nor fast, working with the way Keith groans against his mouth and moves against his fingers, bearing his hips down when he wants more than what Shiro is offering him. That's fine, though. Shiro plunges his fingers deep and crooks them until Keith jerks beneath him, back coming off the bed as he swears. "Fuck! Fuck, yes—" Shiro does it again just for the way Keith tosses his head back, eyes closed and his lips parted, gorgeously wanton.

When Shiro drags his fingers out of Keith, Keith sighs, drawing his knees up even farther. Shiro grins and makes sure he's got his eyes on Keith's face as he slicks the plug and pushes it into him.

Keith's reaction is everything he'd hoped it would be. His eyes fly open and he makes a strangled sound that trails off into a groan as Shiro sinks the plug into him, stretching him mercilessly where it flares wide. "Ah—!" He pants for breath, open-mouthed, as Shiro gets it seated inside him, and the bed shakes with how hard he shudders as Shiro runs his fingers over his skin, feeling how tightly it's stretched around the plug. "Ah—Shiro, what the fuck—?"

"I'm giving you a handicap." Shiro presses his thumb against the spot behind Keith's balls and grins as Keith's eyes roll back as he groans. "It's the only way an old man like me can keep up with you young punks."

He keeps rubbing his thumb in tiny, firm circles as he explains, so God only knows whether Keith actually grasps the taunt—but Keith is a force to be reckoned with, even half out of his head for Shiro. "Is that what this is," he manages. He pins a slightly unfocused gaze on Shiro and grins. Well. Shows his teeth. "Good idea."

Oh, now it's on. He'd been planning on climbing on top of Keith and riding him, but why make things easy? Shiro grins at Keith and drops the lube on his chest. "That's what I thought." He moves off Keith and stretches out. "Thought it might be too much, but I guess you'll be able to fuck me stupid like this after all."

Keith actually closes his eyes as his cock twitches against his stomach. "Yeah, of course," he says—rasps. "No sweat."

Shiro very generously refrains from pointing out that Keith's chest is slick with sweat and that there are strands of hair sticking to his forehead. "Great." He fishes a pillow out of the nest of them at the head of the bed and raises himself up to fit it under his hips. "Come on and fuck me, Keith."

"Fuck," Keith says, hoarse, before he moves, rolling onto his knees slowly, gingerly. Little hitching gasps escape him with every move he makes, punctuating the way the change of position has to be jostling the plug inside him. He's breathing hard by the time he settles between Shiro's knees and his cock is dripping steadily. His hands tremble as he fumbles the lube open and pours it over his fingers.

Shiro plants his feet against the bed and groans with appreciation as Keith strokes his fingers between his cheeks, cool with the slick gel, and rubs them back and forth. The caress in intimate, tender even though they're going to do their respective bests to one-up each other—God, Shiro still has no idea what it was he did to deserve Keith. "Come on," he says as Keith plays his fingers back and forth, the slick drag of them sending sparks skittering up his spine. "Keith."

He thinks he sees a moment of hesitation on Keith's face, as though he's contemplating something—teasing him, probably, maybe trying to get him to beg for it—but Shiro shifts his weight, causing the mattress to shake. The moment is lost, swallowed by the way Keith's lips part on a soundless oh, and Keith sinks his fingers into Shiro, two at once. The stretch of it is enough to pull a groan out of Shiro, wordless with how the sensation sings through him, sweet and sharp.

Keith doesn't hold back; he works his fingers in and out of Shiro, setting a pace that is demandingly fast as the movement of them has heat rippling through Shiro. He relaxes into it, winding his fingers in the pillows and gasping every time Keith hits his prostate and sends thick pleasure stabbing through him. It's good enough to warrant chasing the sensation, so Shiro rocks his fingers against Keith's fingers.

Keith makes another of those strangled sounds and sets his teeth against his bottom lip. "Damn it, Shiro…" He pushes a third finger into him and sinks them deep, angling them for Shiro's prostate and rubbing.

Shiro sees stars, may shout something as he bucks against the relentless pressure of Keith's fingers, but all that is secondary to the building ache at the pit of his stomach. The sudden absence of that pressure is just as intense; Shiro catches his breath on a groan as Keith pulls free of him. "Keith, please—"

Keith catches him behind his knees and pushes them up until he's got Shiro folded nearly in half, held open for him, and slides into him with a single hard, sinuous roll of his hips that jabs pleasure through Shiro. Keith leans over him, hands tight enough on the backs of his thighs that Shiro thinks he'll have bruises there later. He's gasping for breath, sweat beaded on his forehead, dripping off his chin, and his expression is dazed and open. "Fuck… fuck, Shiro…" His voice is nothing but a rasp, shakes on the syllables, and this—Shiro is the one who's done this to him. God.

"Yeah," Shiro breathes, chest aching with how much that is, how breathtaking it is. "Yeah, c'mon." He can just barely shimmy his hips, which jolts sparks of pleasure through him, and snaps what remains of Keith's self-control.

Keith makes a sound that's practically a growl as he pulls back and slams into Shiro again, finding the right angle to hit Shiro's prostate as he does. Shiro shouts something, approval maybe, as the raw sensation punches through him—and again—and again as Keith fucks him, pounding into him brutally fast, hard enough that Shiro plants a hand on the headboard to brace himself. He has to take the full force of each stroke that way, and it's incredible. He can barely pant for breath against the way heat is knotting at the pit of his stomach, and Keith—

Keith is glorious, hair clinging to his face and eyes blown wide and dark as he fucks Shiro, each roll of his hips short and fast. He's making tiny, desperate sounds as he moves, because the plug is moving with him, shifting and rubbing inside him with every stroke—God, it must be driving him out of his head, Shiro can only imagine—

Keith whimpers, teeth clenched on his bottom lip as his hips begin to stutter. Shiro groans and bears down around him. That's all it takes. Keith wails as he comes, jerking against Shiro arrhythmically as his cock throbs inside him.

He collapses against Shiro like a puppet whose strings have been cut and whimpers as he does, trembling. That's almost enough. Shiro rocks himself up against Keith, rubbing against his stomach as Keith gasps, and there—pleasure rolls down on him like a wave, long ripples sweeping through him as he groans, receding slowly and leaving him panting in its wake.

It takes time to come down after that high, and more time to muster the energy necessary to ease the plug out of Keith (Keith shudders against him) and to go fetch a wet washcloth to clean up with. Keith has gone loose-limbed and lax; Shiro thinks he's on the verge of passing out and takes care not to jostle him too much as he manhandles him between the sheets.

It turns out he's mistaken. Once Shiro turns the lamp off and tucks himself in with Keith, Keith rolls over and settles in, head on Shiro's shoulder and a hand spread against his chest. His voice is hushed in the darkness. "You know that living with you is the first time I've felt like I had a home since I was little, right?"

Shiro hadn't known, not in quite those terms, at any rate. He curls his arm around Keith, settling him just a bit closer. "I knew it was home—I hoped you thought of it as home—but I didn't realize it was the first time since then."

"Yeah, well. When you're in the system, you learn pretty fast not to expect anything to be permanent." Keith's voice is flat, the way it gets whenever he talks about how he grew up, like it's all something he wants to get through with as little discussion as possible. Shiro understands that, and he rubs his fingers over the point of Keith's shoulder. Keith's sigh ghosts across his throat and he presses closer. It still takes him a bit to press on. "This grad school thing is freaking me out. I don't think I ever expected to get this far."

Shiro bites his tongue against the urge to tell Keith that he's probably the only one who didn't expect him to get that far. He's not sure where Keith is going with this, but—"It's a big change," he tries.

Keith sighs again. "Yeah. It really is."

Shiro rubs his hand up and down Keith's bicep and waits for him to be ready to go on.

Eventually Keith says, "It's a big change, yeah. It's been freaking me out when I think about it, so I mostly don't. But when I do… I think, well, if it all goes to shit, you'll still be here. I'll have that, still."

"Of course you will," Shiro tells him, because that's absolute. "No matter what happens."

"Yeah, I know." Here in the dark, Keith sounds less certain of that than he usually does. "I just… it's stupid, it's just a house, for crying out loud, but you talked about selling it and I guess I panicked a little, because there went my safety net. Which is stupid, I know—"

"It's not stupid," Shiro says, Keith's resistance finally coming into focus for him. "If this feels like home to you, home for the first time in long time, then—"

"That's just it, though. It's a house. You're what makes it home," Keith says, impatient with something. Shiro isn't sure whether it's himself or Shiro or hell, both of them. He can't really process it, not when Keith has just said that.

But Keith isn't done. "Just—I guess it never even occurred to me that you'd be willing to move away from here. Not because of me, anyway. I mean—just—I never even thought about it. But you said—you said it differently, but it's kind of the same thing, isn't it? You wouldn't be uprooting your life, not if you were moving out there with me." He ends on an uncertain, questioning lilt, like he doubts his own conclusion.

Shiro has to clear his throat before he can answer. "Yeah. Yeah, it's the same thing." He turns his head so he can press his lips to the top of Keith's head. "You're home for me, too."

"Oh," Keith says, very quietly, and presses against him as though there's any way he could get closer. "Oh."

Shiro tightens the arm he has folded around Keith's shoulders and covers the hand spread across his chest with his own. "I want to come with you. Wherever you go. I want to be right there with you. I don't—if you want, I can keep the house, if it would make you feel more comfortable, but I'd rather share whatever it is that's going to happen next with you rather than try to keep up with you from a thousand miles away."

Keith stays silent after that long enough to make Shiro uneasy, though the logical part of Shiro's brain points out that Keith has to be working through some stuff that he clearly wasn't expecting, which of course is going to take time. He makes himself be patient even though he wants to prod Keith from some kind of response.

Keith stirs just a bit. "I don't think you need to keep the house," he says slowly. "It's silly to own a house you don't even live in. Right?"

Shiro squeezes Keith's hand. "It's not silly to keep the house if it keeps you from freaking out while you're in the middle of starting grad school."

"A house isn't a damn security blanket," Keith mutters.

He doesn't sound convinced, to Shiro's ears. "No, it's not, but it is equity. My accountant likes equity." Shiro smiles at the disbelief in Keith's grunt. "But she does, though. More importantly, we don't have to decide right this instant. We can sit down and look at the options and make the decision after that, together."

"…that would be the logical way to do it, huh?" There, that wry note in Keith's voice, that's better. Much better. "Yeah. Okay. We'll do that."

"Sounds like a plan." Shiro turns his head and finds Keith's forehead for a kiss. "Does this mean you're okay with me coming with you?"

"Does that mean—" Keith breaks off and shakes; after a moment Shiro recognizes that for what it is, a near-soundless laugh. "Yes. Yes, I'm okay with you coming with me. Jesus."

"Never hurts to be sure," Shiro says, comfortable now that that's settled.

"No, I guess it doesn't," Keith says after a moment, and that, at least, is that.