Thread by @saucerfulofsins

Is it time for self-indulgent dorm roommates AU? Yes it is. It 100% is. #Sheith, of course, and possibly (probably?) the first in a series of threads because I Live For This Shit :)

Maybe light NSFW but probably pretty tame and schmoop focused.

Keith is frantically tidying his side of the dorm before his new roommate shows up. He's never been great at getting to know new people, and while entering college as an 18 year old and knowing he'd get a roommate was one thing, doing the same thing all over as a graduate

student is something else entirely.

He's always known Lance would move in with Allura the moment he could, had even known most of the past year that this was his impending fate--and he could have found a place, off-campus, maybe.

He might have, if it hadn't been so much more expensive, if he hadn't preferred staying close to the library and faculty and other campus facilities. In theory, it had seemed like something he could do--but now the summer's past, and Keith is cursing himself.

The graduate dorms he moved into are in a separate building, at least, and the people there seem--for the most part--less intent on being loud partygoers, which suits Keith just fine. He doesn't know what to expect, doesn't know who this guy is going to be, but he knows that

he's likely going to be present more than Lance was. Lance, who'd mostly been spending time with Allura anyway, and who'd agreed on sharing his dorm with Keith so he had a quiet place to sleep whether it be day or night and someone who didn't make fun of his face masks.

Keith's left the door open and doesn't expect the tentative knock on the wood.

The guy standing in the doorway looks confused, a frown between his eyebrows. He's tall, with wide shoulders, and after a moment Keith decides he's certainly older than any of the students he's seen.

He must be someone's brother, or maybe he's a new professor.

"Can I help you?" he asks, just to be polite.

"Yeah," the man, because that's what he is, says. "Is this room 3.19?"

Keith nods. "That's right."

"Okay. Well. Nice to meet you, then." He extends his hand to Keith.

Still confused, Keith stares at him "Yeah, you too? I'm sorry, uh, you don't look like a student. Are you lost?"

The man huffs out an embarrassed laugh. "Uh, no. I'm a--I'm a freshman, actually?" He scratches the back of his head and for the first time, Keith catches the shine

of metal instead of flesh. He files the information away for later, when there are less pressing matters to attend to.

"You're--what."

"I'm Takashi Shirogane," the man says, thrusting his hand towards Keith again. This time he does accept. "Call me Shiro, though."

The metal is warm, weirdly so, feeling smooth and not at all like the metal their bedframes are made of. "Keith Kogane," Keith murmurs back, shaking Shiro's hand. "Sorry, I didn't expect someone so--"

"Old?" Shiro adds, and although good-natured, Keith thinks there's a sense of

self-deprecation. "Yeah, I--long story, but I decided to get a college degree after some hardships." The fingers of the metal hand twitch and Keith nods. He knows he can't be blamed for assuming Shiro not being a student anymore, but he still feels like a bit of an asshole.

"I got put here because they don't let older students into the undergrad dorms," Shiro adds, by means of explanation.

Keith nods dumbly. "I know."

And Shiro seems kind enough, really. He seems unperturbed by Keith's complete and utter weirdness, possibly amused, smiling still.

Definitely more serious than Lance is, the kind of guy Keith would peg as a good student without knowing his grades.

"Okay, my things are still in my car," Shiro finally says, unfreezing the situation. Belatedly, Keith realises that Shiro must have been seizing him up, too.

"I can help you," Keith blurts out. He never helped Lance, but he wants to make a good impression, wants to start over this entire conversation. "Not because of your uh--" gesturing at the arm. "Just, an extra pair of hands?"

A slow grin spreads across Shiro's face.

Keith's heart skips a beat, maybe two. There's a scar running across the bridge of Shiro's nose and it doesn't make him look bad, rather enhances his features, and he realises that instant this will be a problem.

But Keith can deal with problems. He's dealt with loads of those.

So joins Shiro and finds he drives a beaten-up and decades-old Corolla, packed full of brown moving boxes with indecipherable scribbles that probably denotate where they're supposed to go. Maybe. Keith hopes so, for Shiro, it'll make moving in easier.

They aren't as heavy as Keith expected and he lifts his brows at Shiro.

"I... didn't want to pack them too heavy," Shiro shrugs, looking down at his arm. "Wasn't sure how I'd feel after a day of moving."

"I mean, this is better for my back too," Keith mutters in response.

Shiro lets out a surprised laugh. "I didn't realise students were so health-conscious these days!"

"I mean, I'm going to be discussing bad backs a lot this year," Keith snorts. When Shiro looks at him quizzically he explains, "I'm going for a master's in rehabilitation."

"Physiotherapy?" Shiro asks. He's stopped in his tracks, looking over the box in his arms. Keith nods. He knows it's a strange choice for someone as socially awkward, as quiet as him, but it made sense when he picked his major and it still makes sense now.

He helps Shiro put away his clothes, lounges on his bed and checks whether he got all the books he needs for the semester when Shiro unpacks most of the rest, so by the evening he only has a few more boxes to go.

"I can't do any more of this today," Shiro groans, stretching.

Keith forces his eyes up, away from the sliver of skin that shows where Shiro's form-fitting shirt rides up, and asks, "Pain?"

"No," Shiro huffs. He pulls the shirt back down and the temptation to stare is gone again. Kind of. (Not really). "Bored. Hungry. I hate moving."

Keith snorts and closes his laptop. "I'd say all of those are very good reasons to stop unpacking."

Shiro hums. "So, where can I get some food?"

"Dining hall's open but if you can spare the extra bucks, there's a couple of places just off-campus that serve good cheap food."

That's how he finds himself sitting across from Shiro during what is distinctly not a date. Shiro has a burger, then another, and it's disgusting enough that Keith comments on his eating habits.

More than that, though, it's more comfortable than he ever thought he'd be around

someone he met six hours earlier. Less than a working day, he thinks. That's less than a single working day.

He learns Shiro went through a space exploration programme to become an astronaut, hand-picked from the best of the best before he even made it to college, that he

loved it, that he went on his first mission as a junior pilot and was involved in the Cerberus 2 landing failure. Keith remembers watching it, the shuttle returning, levelling to the landing area before toppling sideways, the somersaults it made; the wings coming off.

He remembers the notifications that everyone was badly injured but survived. Even then, something sank in his guts; he'd been in his first year at college but he'd had plenty of exposure to rehab facilities to know what a bad injury could amount to. Relatively speaking, he knows,

Shiro is lucky. He doesn't say it-he knows it doesn't change what happened. Shiro doesn't go into details, only mentions that rehab was a positive experience for him and that he's toyed with the idea of majoring in it too, which piques Keith's interest and sets him off on a rant.

And afterwards, they split the bill and walk home across a campus that's slowly filling back up with students.

Keith thinks the next year won't be as bad as he expected.

(At least, until Shiro takes off his shirt that night and Keith's mouth goes very, VERY dry--but he's

willing to be proven wrong this way).

[The end--but tbc(?)]