Written for Day 12 of Sheith Month: Eternal & Choices.
I saw this prompt and thought 'this needs to be a vampire AU; I'm surprised I haven't written one for Sheith yet anyway!' . . . and then I wound up writing them into a different vampire AU first (it'll be up next week) and this one told a slightly different story than I thought it would. I'm still pleased!
"Why would you stay with him?"
Keith blinked, tipping his head and eyeing Laren dubiously. "Excuse me?" he asked flatly.
Laren shook his head and eyed Keith right back. "I didn't realise- I didn't know before. . ."
"What?" Keith asked, growling softly in an overt show of irritation. Perhaps it would prompt Laren to either make himself clear or shut up entirely.
"He turned you! How can you stay with him?" Laren demanded, gesturing broadly.
Keith leaned back, startled. "I- What." He shook his head. That was clearer but still made no actual sense.
"Staying with the one who turned you? Who killed you? Stole your life?" Laren was working himself up impressively as he spoke, but Keith was only getting more and more confused. "I know it can be hard to break away but you're more than a century old now!"
"Almost three." Keith said almost absently as Laren's distressed words began to fall into some manner of sense. He kept track of the years sort of distractedly - better than Shiro, who lost count occasionally - and he was two hundred and eighty four.
"Three! You're far beyond old enough to be strong on your own! To recognise what your sire did to you!" Laren cried, stepping closer. "You could leave him!"
Keith snarled and Laren reared back, eyes wide. "I know exactly what Shiro," he leaned hard on the name, "did for me." he said firmly, eyes narrowed and fangs pressing against his lower lip.
"But. . ." Laren began, though he retreated further, making himself smaller.
"Stole my life?" Keith repeated, sneering. "Shiro stole nothing. I stay with him because it was the choice I made, and I have never desired to change that." he snapped.
"You may enjoy being a vampire; I do too! But to become what we are now we had to lose what we once were. It was taken from us." Laren said, shaking his head. "Some would say our very humanity was stolen to make us . . . this. You could forgive that? How can you bear to stay at his side?"
Confusion joined anger and Keith frowned. "Shiro stole nothing." he repeated, tipping his head to one side and smothering the impulse to growl again. "Why would you think that?"
Laren frowned, brows drawing together. "But your sire. . ."
"I made a choice. Why would you think he took anything I did not offer up to him freely?" Keith asked, unable to keep his voice fully clear, an angry rumble rising in this throat.
"Then- But you were killed! Shiro- Your sire killed you, it wasn't an accident or. . ." Laren trailed off in something that wasn't quite a question, still looking befuddled.
Keith arched an eyebrow. "No, I didn't die in an accident." he said, eyeing Laren sidelong. "I love Shiro. I loved him then. He asked me to stay with him . . . for eternity."
". . .he what." Laren said faintly, and Keith huffed, swallowing down his growl.
"The man I loved asked me to stay with him for eternity and I chose to accept that," Keith bit out slowly and precisely, impatient and irritated, "and this, what I am now. I am very happy with the choice I made and with the man I love and I do not appreciate your imprecations on either."
Laren stuttered out an apology that seemed more confused than contrite, but Keith had no patience to sort out anything further. He turned on his heel and slipped out onto the streets - even here, they were quiet this deep into the night, and Keith passed by fortunately few people on his way home.
Keith strode in the door, making directly for Shiro and almost throwing himself into Shiro's lap, curling there sideways, nudging his cheek roughly against Shiro's shoulder.
Shiro wrapped his arms around his lover gently, rubbing a hand up and down Keith's right arm as he wedged his left shoulder closer against Shiro's side. "Something troubling you, dearheart?" he asked softly, giving a low purr and nuzzling Keith's hair.
Keith growled half-heartedly, then turned his head further, pressing his face against the base of Shiro's throat and breathing him in. He smoothed his hand across Keith's shoulders, feeling the tension in them. Something had put Keith's hackles up, certainly. And badly.
Keith shifted suddenly, moving to straddle Shiro's thighs, arms looping around his shoulders. He smiled, letting his own arms settle around Keith's waist, resting at his hips.
Keith's gaze was intense as he locked eyes with Shiro, but that was hardly new - Keith had always had intense eyes, so much so they could be difficult to meet squarely.
"Do you remember how you turned me, how you made me this?" Keith asked suddenly, tilting his head away as he reached up to run his fingers over the faint, silvery scar Shiro's fangs had left the first time they found his throat.
Shiro swallowed, following the movement and then raising his eyes to Keith's once more. "Of course." he said, his throat and stomach both tightening.
Keith hummed, rubbing the scar once more, then returned his arm to rest with the other wrapped around Shiro's shoulders.
"Is there . . . any particular reason you were thinking of that tonight?" Shiro asked cautiously, because Keith had very definitely been upset - angry - when he stormed in, and Shiro still didn't know why.
Keith was silent for long minutes, but Shiro didn't try to push him to speak. Nor did he move, simply waiting steadily with Keith a comfortable weight in his lap.
"I chose you." Keith said finally, and Shiro's heart felt like it was being buoyed up by the words.
"I know. I have never forgotten it." Shiro said, smiling, holding on to his lover just a little harder. He rubbed his thumb in an arc at the small of Keith's back. "I love you. To not only have you but to know you would - did - choose me, to stay with me, despite what it would mean. . ."
Keith's body language softened slightly, and the faintest edges of a smile began to ease the scowl from his face. "I love you. Choosing you was easy. Staying with you was and is everything I want, love." he said, and Shiro swallowed down a sudden thickness in his throat, touched. The words weren't new, but. . .
Shiro pulled Keith to him for a kiss, unable to resist. Keith didn't hold back, pressing himself full against Shiro and turning the kiss into something demanding and passionate. Keith never held back, and after all these years together Shiro still adored that about him, even when it sometimes still took him somewhat by surprise.
Shiro groaned under the assault of a kiss, then growled, arms tightening around Keith. His fangs scraped delicately over Shiro's lower lip as he sucked at it, then deepened the kiss again. Shiro purred, hands sliding up Keith's back and pulling him down, holding him close. Keith's thighs closed tight on either side of Shiro as he bent under the gentle pressure, and he didn't pull away even as the kiss finally broke, their breath mingling as their brows rested together.
"You offered and I chose," Keith said softly a few minutes later, nuzzling Shiro affectionately, "but I suppose . . . it is not always that way. Is it?" he asked, fingertips tracing Shiro's cheekbone, then trailing down over his jaw and neck to rest on his chest. "Sometimes, for some vampires, it is not that way at all."
"It was so for me with my sire," Shiro said honestly, rubbing his hand over the crest of Keith's hip, "he made the offer to me and I thought on it and accepted. I would never have done otherwise, with anyone." Keith nodded. "But . . . I suppose. . ."
There were those of their kind who were not so reasonable . . . and those who thought of humans - mortals - as invariably lesser. That was no justification, to Shiro's mind, true or not, to treat mortals callously, but not everyone thought the way he did.
"It was still foolish of him to think that you- that I-" Keith growled unhappily and nuzzled along Shiro's jaw to settle at the crook of his neck again. "To accuse you." he mumbled, and Shiro frowned, confused.
"Keith? Dearheart?" Shiro prompted softly.
"Laren." Keith said, with an unhappy tone Shiro had not heard him use for the other vampire before. "He wanted to know why I would not leave you, like you were some sort of attacker that held me to you and not my choice." He growled, deep and angry.
Shiro was a little surprised, and . . . a little bothered that anyone would think that of his relationship with Keith, but he only cuddled his lover closer, with a rough, soothing purr.
Keith huffed, lifting his head to nuzzle Shiro's cheek, then kiss him again, lightly this time. "You are my choice, Shiro, for as long as I am yours." he said, voice warm and eyes soft. "That is all I ever wanted."
Shiro hugged him tight and kissed him firmly. "For eternity." he promised, heart aching with how much he adored Keith.
Keith only smiled, sliding his arms snugly around Shiro again. "For eternity, love."