Thread by @saltyshiro

I like to think that Shiro & Keith’s first kiss was actually on the rooftop of the Garrison while they were stargazing before Shiro left for Kerberos and Shiro didn’t know what to do & Keith ran away thinking it was unrequited and they don’t talk about it until years later 😬

Keith doesn’t mean to do it. He doesn’t mean to. But Shiro is so close & the way the corners of his mouth crinkle when he laughs makes Keith reach out & touch. Shiro stops laughing, holds very still, breath warm, eyes wide, & Keith can’t not lean in and press his lips to Shiro’s.

It’s quick. Keith is brave in everything except kissing Shiro, and before Shiro can even move, he’s off & running with a hasty apology-excuse, scrambling down the ladder and out of Shiro’s life. Shiro watches him go, and touches his lips, and tries not to cry.

The next morning at the launch, Keith acts like it never happened, & Shiro wonders if he was dreaming. But he holds Keith a little tighter, & before he pulls away, & boards the ship that will separate them, he sweeps Keith’s bangs out of his eyes and kisses his forehead gently.

Keith looks up at him, breathless, & memorizes Shiro’s face in that moment, open & soft & more than a little sorry. His dark eyes shine with the light of the rising sun over the horizon. Months later, it’s this Shiro that Keith sees when he gets the news, & sobs himself to sleep.

Light years past the Kepler Belt, Shiro sees Keith, too. He sees him as Myzax brings his fist down millimeters from Shiro’s skull. He sees him as agony slices over the bridge of his nose. He wonders why it isn’t his life that flashes before his eyes, but Keith - only Keith.

And when Shiro stands dull-eyed and blood-soaked before the churning crowd, crowned Champion by their hungry roars, he knows that all hope is truly lost because he cannot remember Keith’s face in the starlight any longer.

He clings to what he can, when he can. He digs his nails into his remaining arm in sick mimicry of human touch, of tenderness. Shiro does not want to forget how to be kind, how to be good, how to be gentle. His worst dreams are the ones where he returns to Keith, then hurts him.

But when he returns to Keith at long last, he doesn’t hurt him.

(Not yet, anyway.)

He doesn’t touch him, either. Doesn’t say a word. Just looks, looks at Keith’s face in the golden Arizona sunshine, and remembers.

Keith’s changed, when he wasn’t there to see.

He hasn’t changed like Shiro. Shiro’s changed in the way cruel, desperate creatures do. Keith’s changed like the cosmos. He’s bigger, brighter, and when he looks down at Shiro, lying in a bed that smells like Keith, his eyes burn with a spark Shiro thought he’d never see again.

Shiro almost kisses him right then, but something stops him. Maybe it’s the way Keith’s brow furrows at the sight of his scarred face or metal arm. Or maybe it’s because Shiro’s first instinct to Keith’s face so close to his is not to kiss, but to flinch back & expect a fight.

“You came back,” Keith whispers. “I knew you would.”

Shiro doesn’t ask how he knew, because he’s never met anyone who has quite as much faith in him as Keith has. That doesn’t change.

Even when Shiro’s blade is to Keith’s throat, that doesn’t change, even if it should.

In the astral plane everything is quieter, and clearer.

“I should have kissed him back,” Shiro says to the stars. “I would have. If he’d let me. But he was young. Scared. So was I. He didn’t have a reason to be afraid of me then. But now...now, he’s fighting me to the death.”

But the truth is that Keith was never afraid of Shiro.

He was afraid of disappointing him.

He was afraid of losing him again, for good.

He was afraid of forgetting him, and of being forgotten by him.

So when Keith chooses Shiro and lets go, it isn’t really a choice at all.

And when Shiro catches him, that isn’t a choice, either. It’s a purpose. It’s a promise he refuses to break - even in death.

The moment Keith looks at Shiro standing there among the field of stars is the first moment Keith is afraid of him. Shiro can see it in his eyes.

But Shiro is tired of being feared. He is tired of being alone, too.

He could tell Keith that he died. But how can he tell Keith that, when Keith spent so many months searching, when Keith never gave up hope, only to be rewarded with a betrayal and a new scar, in the end?

So instead Shiro says, “I missed you.”

Keith is bathed in starlight, just like he was that night. He steps towards Shiro, uncertain. “Are we dead?” he whispers. “Are the others -“ His voice trembles, breaks. His hands fall to limp fists at his sides.

Shiro starts forward & this time Keith is the one who flinches.

“They’re alive,” Shiro says, “Keith, he was lying, they’re alive, they’re okay.”

Keith’s face crumples. “But you —”

Shiro reaches out. He touches Keith’s scarred face. “I’m here,” he says. “I’m not leaving you, Keith.”

Keith clings to his wrist with both hands, tight.

Shiro steps closer. Keith swallows, and turns his face away. “Is it really you?” he asks dully. “Or is this just - just another trick?”

Shiro is quiet. Then he slides his hand to hold Keith’s jaw, to frame it with fingers long-lost, and says, “I was your first kiss.”

Keith tries to pull away, but Shiro won’t let him. Not this time. Keith looks up and his expression is heartbreaking. “I’m sorry,” Keith gasps, ragged and frantic, “I never said it, but I’m sorry, I never should’ve-“

“I love you too,” Shiro says, and kisses him.

Keith falls into him like he fell into the void of space — willingly, desperately. But Shiro doesn’t let him fall. Shiro holds him close, keeps him warm among the cold cosmos.

The darkness around them bursts into brilliant supernovae.

Neither of them wants to let go. So they don’t. They kiss until the Universe ends, & until a new one is born of the swirling nebulae all around them. They kiss & kiss, and with his eyes closed and Keith in his arms Shiro can feel the warmth of the sun in their eclipsing embrace.

Even when the kiss does end, their embrace doesn’t. Shiro leans his forehead against Keith’s, and Keith sighs, nuzzles closer.

Keith’s eyes burn and glow to his very core. “You were my only kiss. First and - and last.”

“Not the last,” Shiro says. “This isn’t the end, Keith.”

Keith tilts his head, softly bewildered. “Aren’t we dead?”

Shiro smiles, bright as an event horizon. “Do you think I would let the man I loved die? You didn’t give up on me. I’m not giving up on us, Keith.”

Then all the lights go out.

There is comfort in the darkness. The Black Paladins welcome it, for they are together, and that is all that matters.

It makes no sense when they wake up in the Black Lion’s cockpit, alive and whole - but then again, none of this makes sense. Space makes no sense. Voltron makes no sense.

But they make sense. Shiro and Keith. In love. Inseparable.

The Black Lion hums, welcoming them home.

Shiro & Keith return to the Garrison rooftop when the war is done, and this time, neither of them runs. They’re exactly where they want to be, and besides — the stars are even more beautiful when you have someone to share them with.

the end 💖