One Year Later
"Stupid, quiznacking… why do I… murder Coran…" Flipping the edge of his tie over the knot for a fifteenth time, Keith muttered under his breath, feeling frustrated and tipping toward deranged. The silk was too slippery and unpredictable and Keith was hating Coran's insistence on the colored strand of assholery more and more with every failed attempt to secure the death trap around his neck. Gritting his teeth, Keith angrily undid the knot again, listening to the sound of his own grinding jaw as he started over.
From his spot on the edge of the bed, Shiro watched Keith's reflection in the mirror. His own tux had been carefully buttoned and tucked for nearly twenty minutes, leaving him free to observe Keith's under-his-breath threats as he attempted to make sense of his own. Resting back on the heels of his hands, Shiro admired the stunning cut of Keith's tux pants and the beautiful way they highlighted Keith's perfect ass. Keith might hate Coran's choice for their evening attire, but Shiro was loving every inch of it.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" Keith shouted, ripping the tie from his neck again and balling it in his fists. Closing his eyes and tipping his head toward the ceiling, Keith silently prayed for this time to work.
"Baby," Shiro inquired, "how many times are you going to try to tie that thing?" He kept his eyes level on Keith's reflection, admiring the way Keith's cheeks had flushed throughout all of his efforts.
"As many times as it takes," Keith grumbled, brows furrowing again as he finally looked up and caught Shiro's teasing smirk in the mirror. "You know, if you loved me, you would have strangled me with this thing by now so we wouldn't have to go tonight." Pouting in Shiro's direction, Keith let his hands drop to his sides.
What he really wanted to do was walk to the bed and shove Shiro down on it. There was some level of vast unfairness regarding how easily Shiro had slipped into his tux and how otherworldly his body looked in the tailored fabric. Coran had made them buy these stupid outfits, and Keith was going to make sure that the money spent was worth his agony by spending a ridiculously long amount of time stripping Shiro out of it. Almost falling victim to his own desires, Keith felt a wave of disappointment when Shiro stood up.
"How about I help you out?" Crossing the room, Shiro turned Keith by his shoulders, running his knuckles down Keith's torso with intimate levels of contact unneeded to retrieve the ends of Keith's tie. Adjusting the loop around Keith's neck, Shiro carefully wound the tie into a knot to mirror his own. "You're nervous," he commented, flicking a glance to Keith's face as he made the final adjustments to the knot at Keith's neck.
"No…" Keith turned to face the mirror, eyes tracking Shiro's hands as they folded Keith's collar down and rested on Keith's hips. "I mean… yeah. I don't like people. Why do I even have to go? No one cares if the writer is at the movie premiere. We could just like… watch it on Netflix or something." Hearing Shiro's chuckle, Keith tried to concentrate on the sound, leaning back against Shiro's chest. "And the movie could be awful. I mean… lots of movies are awful."
"Hey, we both have a part in this, and together we've never made anything awful." Shiro wrapped his arms around Keith's waist and rested his chin on Keith's shoulder.
"Remember that time we tried to make brownies from scratch?" Letting his head drop on Shiro's shoulder, his fingers traced random patterns on Shiro's forearms. "Or remember our first potato canon? It took Matt weeks to regrow his eyebrows." Feeling Shiro's chuckle this time, Keith tried to calm himself, eyes roaming over his own reflection. "I look ridiculous."
Despite the softness of the fabric and the fact that Coran had made sure the fit was perfect, Keith longed for the comfort of his t-shirts and jeans. He refused to even think about the polished dress shoes sitting next to the door of their room, wiggling his toes in his red dress socks.
"I think you look gorgeous," Shiro argued, releasing Keith's waist to run his hands down Keith's arms and then up the front of his thighs. "I've been watching you fight your tie for twenty minutes and the whole time I couldn't help imagining what it would be like to take you out of this…piece," he ran a finger over Keith's belt buckle, "by…" trailing his fingers over Keith's fly, he felt the twitch of Keith's interest, "piece."
Twisting in Shiro's arms, Keith grabbed the lapels of Shiro's jacket. "Keep it up and we're not making it out of here." Kissing Shiro hard, Keith curled his fingers tighter into Shiro's clothing. "On second thought…" kissing Shiro's neck, Keith felt the bob of Shiro's Adam's apple, "keep it up."
Using every ounce of self-restraint he possessed, Shiro tightened his grip on Keith's hips and pushed to put distance between them. "You're not fooling me. You are using my lust for you to try and avoid this." He laughed when Keith nipped at his bottom lip. "Come on, find your jacket and put on your shoes, Cinderella. It's time for the ball."
"That is not appealing," Keith scowled, reaching down to palm Shiro's erection and then abruptly letting go to locate the rest of his monkey suit. Shiro's groan at the loss of contact felt like sweet revenge for Shiro's own teasing. With a sneer at the black fabric in his hands, Keith hesitated, staring at the jacket that would be the second to last piece of his formal armor for the night.
"Allow me." Pulling the jacket from Keith's hands, Shiro held it up to help Keith slide his arms into it. Once again spinning Keith around, Shiro tugged on the front of it, straightening the shoulders and standing back to admire Keith. For a man who usually looked irresistible in plain t-shirts, Keith looked tantalizingly perfect dressed in his tux. "Good God, I don't know if I can handle you dressed like this all night." Wrapping a hand around Keith's tie, Shiro gently pulled him forward. "Warn me if I start drooling, okay?"
"Yeah right," Keith rolled his eyes, arms circling Shiro's waist. "Have you looked at yourself? You're going to break necks tonight." Kissing Shiro's neck, Keith momentarily considered placing a hickey above the line of Shiro's collar.
A knock on the door had Shiro drawing back. "Let's go, you two!" Allura called from the hallway and Shiro had to bite back his laugh as Keith muttered another death threat. Offering his arm to Keith, Shiro smiled when a tentative hand rested on his forearm.
Pausing at the door to shove his feet into the worst excuse for shoes Keith had ever seen, he let himself lean on Shiro more than was strictly necessary. Although he had admitted to being nervous, he wasn't sure that Shiro knew exactly how nervous he was. His stomach had been in knots from the moment their plane had landed and Keith was sure he was slowly losing his mind. As much as he wanted to see his movie on the big screen, he also wanted to hide away and let everyone else suffer through the experience.
Putting a reassuring arm around Keith's waist, Shiro opened the door and smiled at Allura who was dressed in a long purple gown. She also looked Keith-levels of nervous, and instinctively, Shiro pulled them both into a group hug. When he finally released them, he smiled at their matching red cheeks.
"The red carpet awaits," Shiro joked, guiding Keith from the hotel room and shutting the door behind him.
"Quiznak," Keith cursed, falling in step beside Shiro and following Allura down the hallway toward his doom.
Bright lights flashed in time with the shouts of Keith's name over the crowd. Behind him, held back by body guards and metal railings, were lines of fans screaming and crying as the cast of Voltron made their way down the red carpet. To Keith's left, Matt and Pidge were avoiding the interviewers, dressed to impress but unknown to the people who were competing to take the best picture. To Shiro's right, Lance refused to take any pictures without Allura pressed to his side, loudly defying the photographers' requests and demanding that they include "his better half." Keith wouldn't admit it to Lance, but he and Allura made a stunning pair, rivaled only by Shiro and Keith in their coordinating black tuxes.
"I still think the rainbow ties are a little much," Keith murmured in Shiro's ear, letting himself be turned toward another camera and smirking in the direction of another flashing blub. Coran had told Shiro he could smile as much as he wanted to balance out Keith's inability to properly smile in public. The comment had made Shiro laugh and Keith pout, but Keith couldn't argue the validity.
Peering down at Keith, Shiro's smile became more lovesick goofy than camera ready. Even though he could feel Keith's hand shaking where it was pressed on Shiro's lower back, the rest of him looked calm, collected, and unbelievably sexy. Tilting his mouth towards Keith's ear, Shiro whispered, "I'm having all kinds of inappropriate thoughts about you right now."
Later, the photographer who caught the picture of the notoriously stoic Keith Kogane smiling softly with his head tipped down and his cheeks tinted pink would sell the picture for enough money to pay his rent for a year and start an online riot about Keith's softness with Shiro. In the moment though, Keith could only feel the gentle graze of Shiro's breath over his cheek and the solid beat of Shiro's heart pressed tight against his shoulder. Every second of their journey down the red carpet had been for someone else, but Keith felt safe in Shiro's embrace, concentrating on sharing each moment with the love of his life.
The lights in the theater slowly brightened, the soundtrack of the movie's credits drowned out by the thunderous applause of the viewers. Every single person was on their feet, cheering and celebrating the cinematic success of Voltron.
Every single person, except one.
Keith remained rooted to his chair, hands clamped over the lower half of his face, eyes wide in disbelief. Seeing his world go from a place inside of his mind to visible reality had overwhelmed him in every way possible. Hunk and Lance had captured every nuance of his characters, playing them on screen better than Keith could have ever written them. Every scene had been magic and Keith felt his emotions washing over him, drowning him in all the best ways.
"I am so proud of you." A hug crushed Keith, Allura throwing herself into his arms with tears running down her face. "Keith, I don't even have the words. There aren't words." Hugging him tightly, Allura cried on his shoulder.
"I don't even have words," Keith whispered, finally letting himself hug Allura back. "It's because of you that this is all happening. Thank you, Allura. Thank you so much." He buried his head into the fluff of Allura's hair as his tears got the best of him.
"They are cheesy," Lance commented, clapping a hand on Shiro's shoulder. "And I should be getting those hugs. I'm the one who just kicked some serious ass on that screen."
Throwing an arm around Lance's shoulders, Shiro rubbed his fist into Lance's hair, treating him the same way Shiro had always treated Pidge. "You did good, kid," Shiro laughed, letting his arms drop when Lance squawked. Moving his smile in Keith's direction when Allura stepped aside, Shiro reached down to pull Keith to his feet. "I think you have a hit on your hands."
"I want to say no," Keith focused wide eyes on the scrolling words moving over the screen, "but not even I can argue about it. I can't believe…"
"If you say you can't believe it was so good, I'm dumping you," Shiro teased, pinching Keith's chin. "Keith, accept it, this is amazing. And I'm not just saying that because my robots are in it." Catching Keith as he threw himself into Shiro's arms, Shiro didn't hesitate to swing him in a circle.
"Thank you, Shiro," Keith pressed his face into Shiro's chest, "thank you for everything."
Before Shiro could respond, people began to flood them, demanding Keith's attention. Keeping a firm hand on Keith's waist, Shiro stayed by his side, admiring the way Keith handled himself with the questions and praise being fired in his direction.
Shiro remembered the angry little six-year-old who had dented his grandfather's trashcans. He remembered the boy who failed to jump a line of those same trashcans on his bike. He remembered trips to the lake when they were barely old enough to understand the changes happening to their bodies, and campfires where they discussed their newfound sexualities. He remembered their almost kiss, and all the kisses they had shared since.
He remembered the moment on their hill, when Shiro had gone to say goodbye to Keith and the moment they had reunited over the table in Pidge's bookstore. He remembered their first dance in the bar in Boston, and all of their sock-footed dancing in their now shared home in Texas. He remembered running into Keith's arms outside of a private plane, the day life had changed forever.
Maybe he had known it from the moment he laid eyes on Keith for the first time, or maybe it had been the five years apart that had finally clued him in, but Shiro knew without a doubt that he had found his soulmate in the middle of this crazy excursion they called life. His soulmate had created a world to showcase their love and although it was still a secret to everyone else, Shiro knew Keith had written their fictional counterparts a happy ending.
Feeling his heart swell in his chest when Keith's eyes met his, Shiro leaned down to steal a kiss, uncaring about the people around them.
For all the mistakes Shiro had made and all the decisions that had led him in the wrong direction, Keith had never given up on their happy ending. Keith had never given up on Shiro.
Prepared to spend every day of the rest of his life being Keith's hero, Shiro dipped him lower to kiss Keith deeper while the occupants of the theater cheered for them. "You're my happy ending," he whispered as he set Keith back on his feet.
"And you're mine," Keith answered, love flowing in every word.
With arms wrapped securely around each other's waists, they were prepared to endure the rest of the evening celebrating the success of their movie. And when the public celebration was over, they would return to their hotel room where their real celebration could finally begin.
