Shiro wants one thing in particular. The longer it goes on, the harder it gets to avoid. He adds a more reasonably sized fish Keith doesn't know the name of but tastes smooth as butter, a red striped shell he doesn't recognize, and one beautiful, perfect pearl to Keith's collection before Keith buckles under pressure.

"How many did you get through to find this?" Keith asks, turning the dark pearl over in the light. It's misshapen and perfect—a pretty thing he doesn't have a use for, but wants, too.

Shiro laughs and hides his face against Keith's thigh. He has his hands on Keith's knees, his head between his legs, and it's a little too much, but he's broken Keith in slowly and there's something unwitting about his closeness.

"A few," he says against Keith's bare skin. He never presses it, never does more than Keith wants. He acts like everything Keith does is a gift—but he's too indulgent. He never asks for anything in return.

It's been bothering Keith for days. He pushes Shiro's head up, pushes his bangs back to expose one high cheekbone. There's a scrape there, raw and red. A fight, Shiro said when he'd asked, with a little shrug. He's been picking up cues and mannerisms and he's not as alien as he was, but it doesn't matter. Keith wants him in scales and cold water. Keith wants him however he comes.

The wound on his side is healed over, at least. Keith doesn't flatter himself that he helped it any, but it's taking all of his better judgement not to run up to the house and grab a box of waterproof bandages for his cheek—a recent acquisition from the grocery store, bought on a discount and covered in cartoon characters.

The image of Shiro, cheek plastered with drawings of superheroes and princesses makes him snort. Shiro takes the chance to press into his hand, eyes faux-innocent and large.

"Want to go for a swim?" His grip tightens over Keith's thighs imperceptibly.

This. This is what Shiro wants, more than anything. Swim with me. All logic says: if Shiro was going to hurt him by now, he would have.

"It's safe," Shiro goads in his best, softest voice, tail flicking under the waves.

He's a vision in the water. For a moment Keith flashes back to the book in the store, the mermaid drawn and colored to entice, leading the sailor down into the sea. That's what they are, if Shiro were some long-haired, winsome, delicate thing and less obviously the most lethal presence in a hundred mile radius.

"I know." He isn't scared of heights and the jump and he isn't scared of water and he's almost sure he isn't scared of Shiro. The thrill in his gut has been shifting and changing. Shiro reaches up to take his hand and a shiver that has nothing to do with fear rolls up his spine at the cool touch.

He doesn't pull at Keith but there's a light in his eyes. He's excited. The day is warm and the clouds overhead look like something drawn in one of the children's books he found in a box in the back of the closet. Nothing about this is threatening.

"I'll keep you safe," Shiro reiterates, thumb drawing circles against his palm.

"I know," Keith repeats, because he does.

Shiro's patience is almost beyond comprehension; Keith is frustrated with himself. He's never been more afraid than he was brave. It's what made him a good pilot. He can jump a cliff on a hoverbike easier than he can do this, and this is simpler than falling.

Keith draws a breath that shakes in his chest. Shiro releases his hand and gives him space. Somehow that makes it easier. He's being silly about this, he knows. It's like ripping off a bandaid, he thinks. It was his Dad's favorite phrase and he used it for every little hardship Keith had to go through, but he still held Keith when cried and this isn't so bad as that.

Jump, he tells himself, but his body won't move. There's some foreign force holding his arms straight, keeping his hands pressed so tight to the edge of the dock he's still sitting on, some terror that's too ingrained to fight. The water is spinning dark below him despite the sun, Shiro's tail whipping back and forth under the surface like nothing so much as a cat, excited or agitated. Keith's heart is stuck in his throat over it.

And he can't move.

"Keith," Shiro says, even softer than before, "you don't need to."

His eyes are so warm. There's no guile in them. The involuntary pull at the corner of his mouth is the only sign he's disappointed. As it happens, the only thing Keith wants less than to get in the water is to see that expression on Shiro's face.

Like pulling off a bandaid.

The idea occurs to him a second before he decides to do it, and then he's all in; he pushes off the dock with a deliberate lack of grace and gets one glorious moment to appreciate Shiro's look of concern as it morphs into affront before he hits the water, hard, sending up a wave and a rush of water that sounds like the crack of a gun going off. The cannonball was his best move, practiced in a hundred motel pools, much to his Dad's chagrin. It's been years since he swam, but it isn't something you really forget. He remembers how to tread water at least, past the rush of bubbles and salt water stinging his eyes.

But when he surfaces, Shiro is gone.

For that instant, blinking salt water out of his eyes, cold sinking into his bones, heart gone still in his chest, he's sure he's dead. He's sure, like dread in his gut. Every gift and kind word, every kiss—it was all a play for this moment and now he's going to die here in this water without a scrap left to find. It's like the hero in a story eating some forbidden food in some forbidden place after everyone warned him not to; now he's here, he'll never leave.

Softly, he feels arms wind around his waist from behind, under the water. A hand slides across his chest and there's breath in his hair. "That was sneaky," Shiro whispers in his ear, voice deep.

"Sorry," Keith breathes when he remembers how to speak.

Shiro laughs and pulls him closer. It sounds inhuman, like a huff of air more than anything else, but it still makes Keith grin and the stutter in his chest dies in relief. Shiro pulls him back against his chest and then tips them both back to float in the water. Keith's head lands against his chest as Shiro helps him balance.

"I thought you'd sink," he teases, voice rumbling under Keith's ear.

Keith tries not to sound petulant and fails. "I told you I know how to swim."

Shiro's hand skates up his side. "Yes, you did. You're good at it," he says, admiring. Keith isn't, but the compliment is still nice to hear from someone who can't do anything but. The feel and sound of bone and blood and muscle shifting under him is so strange. It should be overwhelming, but for the first time in so long he feels totally at peace—so soothed it's like the feel of a body against his is a sedative.

He could fall asleep to the thud of Shiro's heart. The water smells good and so does Shiro, but in the strangest way. Some days the ocean smells like rot and others it's this crisp, delicate, alluring thing.

"Do I smell good?" Shiro asks, chest rising on a laugh.

Keith dips a hand in the water and splashes at Shiro's face, his own going red. Shiro does, though. His skin, his color, the liquid shine of his eyes are all alien. The irony of a life spent chasing something this strange in some cold and distant corner of the universe when it was right here leaves him cold. A whole world under the waves.

You're dreaming, a part of him still insists, but he's not. In a dream, he wouldn't be sick. In a dream, Kolivan's dead-eyed stare and warning wouldn't haunt him. In a dream, he wouldn't bleed so easily.

"What's it like there?" he asks quietly to distract to himself.

The ocean wasn't one of his childhood obsessions. They moved when he was young and then it was the road and the desert, a two year long dinosaur phase, a more grounded ambition to be a vet, and a brief obsession with firefighting. After that, his eyes were always starbound. All his knowledge about the ocean comes from the few nature documentaries caught on hotel TV and the old hardback encyclopedia he used to flip through at the Garrison—and neither had a thing about Shiro's kind. It still feels like a dream, but one he's settled into for a long, deep rest.

Shiro doesn't answer him, not for a long moment. "I can show you," he offers. He's not serious; he doesn't have that light in his eyes he gets when he has something new for Keith.

"I... don't think I can breathe down there." He can barely breathe above water.

Shiro rolls, tipping him into the water slowly. "I know." Keith still hasn't seen all of Shiro and according to all logic there's more of him below the water than above it. That's how those things work. "I can show you something else, though." He reaches out and grips Keith's hip loosely. It's the one made of claw and scale. He's holding like he doesn't want to entertain the chance that Keith could slip away with the waves.

It almost bites his skin, but Shiro's taken care not to leave a mark on him since he saw the bruise and scab on Keith's mouth. He'd dragged his fingers across it and then pressed a new kiss to the edge of the mark, achingly soft.

He nods and Shiro grins with every tooth.


The cove he brings them to is set back in the cliffs in its own small bay—a white beach nestled between the rocks, guarded by chalk walls and clear blue water that deepens to black a few yards out. Keith knows as soon as he sees it that this is something private, something secret.

It looks lived in and the longer he looks, the more he sees—odd organizations of rock and little piles of shells on the terraces of stone. Shiro pushes him toward shore, coming up as high as he can on the beach. Keith walks forward in half a trance, trying to pick out everything mislaid and strange. His foot collides with a shell and he reaches down to work it out of the wet sand. It's midnight violet, shades lighter than Shiro's scales, but in the same hue.

"What is this place?"

"Mine," Shiro says, ever-forthcoming.

Keith turns back to him, some quip on the tip of his tongue, and all thought flees from him. He was right; there is more of Shiro under water than above. Even now, he can't see the end his tail, but he can see most. Shiro is resting in the sand, head propped on one hand as he watches Keith, not quite smug but more than amused. A little brush of wind sneaks its way past the protective cliffs and sends goosebumps scattering up Keith's spine.

Shiro is massive. His tail snakes and coils under the water, a uniform oil-black, but the spine of it is edged in feathery white fins. It's a bizarrely delicate addition, like lace and frills on Kevlar, but then Keith steps closer and realizes it's not by design. The white portion of his tail must not heal and scar like the rest of him; it's shredded.

He didn't realize he'd gotten close enough to touch. Shiro is watching him, intent despite the nonchalant pose, eyes following him where he's half knelt in the water, hand outstretched. It's implicit permission.

Keith keeps his touch light. It's soft; not slick or strange. It feels like nothing so much as some wave-tattered strip of silk. The ruined parts of him are still lovely.

He pulls back after a moment, trying to get his bearings, a little series of sparks dancing in front of his eyes when he rises. You're beautiful, he wants to say because it feels like something Shiro should hear. But he doesn't say it. Instead he explores, mentally cataloguing all the hundred thousand little things Shiro has hidden away here. He wonders how much of Shiro's collection has found its way to the shack; if this is a slow inundation and Shiro will be half moved in without even legs to walk and see the home he's made for Keith.

The tidepools are the best part; they're different than the ones closer to the area Keith knows. These are curated, full of little colorful crabs. Shiro leans over the rock and points out his favorites, setting them in Keith's hand to watch them scurry, a hundred thousand little pets for him to admire and keep track of. The innocence of it is almost unnerving. There are patterns drawn on the rock in some places, nonsensical drawings that Keith realizes with a shudder could only be drawn by the claws on Shiro's right arm.

He sits back against the rock as Shiro points out curiosity after curiosity and wonders how many years it took to build this. It's a monument to curiosity. It's a monument to loneliness.

"There's something else, but we have to wait until sundown," Shiro says, settling beside him, leaning back, elbows on the rock. He shoots one nervous glance at Keith like he thinks maybe Keith has prior obligation or will turn into a pumpkin when the light goes—as if there's anywhere Keith would rather be.

"Can't wait," Keith assures him, fighting the thread of aching that's wound its way through him. He's surprised to find it isn't a lie. It's been years since he had someone to sit with like this. Sometimes around holidays, when they knew there would be fireworks, his Dad would find some quiet cliff for them to eat whatever late-night fast food dinner they'd managed to wrangle up and watch. This feels different. Not better, but warmer deep down. How stupid do you have to be, he wonders, to spend weeks watching the ocean with someone and still get excited for it?

They spend hours there, until the first blues of night are streaking over the hills.

Keith drifts off slowly to the sounds of waves and the warmth, Shiro's arm keeping him from falling into the water. He wakes Keith with an arm on his shoulder and then around it, lifting him and securing him against a hard chest. Keith hums a wordless question.

"Awake? It's time," he roughs against Keith's hair, voice less human than it has been.

Keith blinks awake the rest of the way and wraps himself around Shiro. When he looks back toward land, there are lights above the cove, set high on the cliff. It doesn't make sense until he realizes what must be up there—the Station is the only thing it could be. Guilt wriggles through him at the thought, but what Kolivan doesn't know can't hurt either of them.

It's well past sunset and cold is starting to settle in, but Shiro's body holds heat like the rocks at the shore do. He's not warm, but he's warmer than the water. Keith clings closer, arms and legs hooked around Shiro.

"Where are we going?" he asks. His voice is almost a rasp to match Shiro's. The air in his lungs still isn't sitting right, but his body is pliant and oddly warm.

Shiro pulls him in closer with a hand splayed against his back. "It's a secret," he replies. "You can only see it when the moon is dying."

It's less than a week out from the new Moon, but Keith coughs against his shoulder, an aborted chuckle. "It doesn't die—it's just—"

"I know, Keith. I know about tides." It only comes across a little pompous. "I know about the moon."

Keith hides his face in Shiro's hair to smother his laugh. It sticks up ridiculously anyway, but when Keith pulls back, the entire side of his head looks like it's been licked by a cow. Keith rolls with it and takes the moment to muss Shiro's hair with his hand. He can almost hear Shiro's eyes roll in the dark. He pulls Keith off his hip and settles him lower, so Keith has to loop his arms around Shiro's neck and wrap his legs around Shiro's waist as best he can to hang on. "Cute," Shiro mutters.

The new position is almost too close—but nothing with Shiro really is. He can feel every twitch of Shiro's torso this way, intimately. Keith tries to angle his hips away subtly, but Shiro grips under his knees and pulls him close, forcing his legs wider and his hips in tight.

"The water is rough further out."

"Are we going—like this?" The thought of being this close to Shiro the entire time is not feasible. Even the thought is close to too much. He angles away again, but this time Shiro makes a little annoyed sound and grips his behind with one hand, forcing him in tight. Keith can't hide it. Even half hard, it's obvious with so little between them.

Shiro—doesn't notice. Doesn't answer. He keeps going, moving then through the water at a pace that must be agonizingly slow to him, but it ruins Keith. The hands around his thighs are gentle and big enough to wrap around him completely.

"Are you scared?" Shiro changes the position of his scaled hand, pressing it to the center of his back as a ground.

Keith presses his forehead to the muscle at the nape of Shiro's neck. "No," he says wetly, voice weak.

If he stays still for a little longer, Keith can pull himself together. He focuses on his breathing. It's been so long since he felt desire; it's been so long since he wanted it, and longer since he did anything about it. "Wait, Shiro—"

Shiro stops cold, and then there's a hand in his hair, tugging his head back, arching his neck. He opens his eyes to Shiro's narrowed gaze. He's smart. He has a penchant for hunting out Keith's secrets and laying them bare.

"You—" He cocks his head. "Oh. Oh. " His voice rumbles through his chest in the worst way.

He rocks against Keith experimentally. It's over. Keith tries to stop the sound that crawls out of his throat, pathetic in need, but Shiro catches it against his lips. It's the only kiss Keith's ever known but he can't imagine better.

With painful slowness, Shiro slides a hand between them and presses it against the front of his thin, soaked swim shorts. He's never been touched there, never been touched like that anywhere, and it draws another sound out of him, a high, sharp breath.

Shiro pulls his hand back. "Can I?" The question is kind. There's a little regret in it, a little need. Keith still doesn't have a word for what they are. Lovers is out of some bad novel with a windswept couple on the cover. It's not for them, though it might be if this goes too far. They're more some cautionary fable about not following beautiful things into the water.

Keith nods and reaches out and takes Shiro's hand and pulls it back to him and yes, it's gone too far. It has been for weeks. Kolivan's warning comes back to him again, but then Shiro presses down and Keith shudders and pulls his legs up and all thoughts of guilt flee his mind.

The air is colder by the moment. It hurts to breathe it, but the breath in his lungs is fire between them. Shiro touches him without intent, aimless fingers pressing and wandering, feeling him out, demanding nothing and expecting nothing and that's almost worse. He keeps glancing at Keith in the shadow and capturing his gaze until Keith gives some little affirmation that yes, it's good, and yes, keep going, don't stop, there .

Around them, the water ebbs and flows. The light goes fast once it starts, but Keith feels utterly safe. Somewhere below them, the tail he saw is flickering back and forth, keeping them afloat.

The end of it brushes his leg once, seemingly by accident, and the sensation almost overwhelms him. He has to close his eyes and breathe. Between them, Shiro's fingers curl against him for the dozenth time, cloth still between them and barely touching besides, like he's trying to learn to handle something delicate and breakable. Keith is neither, but maybe to Shiro everything is. He draws the pad of one finger up and back down Keith's length, still without intent but catching on. He wants to work sounds out of Keith, make him breath faster, make his body twitch and shudder.

Keith's pulse rushes and skips in his throat. He swallows to right it, closes his eyes, tries to breathe through this slow, quiet burn.

"Show me," Shiro says.

The feeling of eyes on him with that kind of want is foreign and almost too strange. He hasn't let himself think about it too deeply, but he imagined those eyes. He imagined the water. He touched himself to it, once, and then wondered for hours after what he was doing.

"Show you what?" The question is a lie and it doesn't sit well on his tongue. It trips out of his mouth, ragged.

Shiro leans in and breathes him in. "Everything." The word barely registers, it's so low and strange. Everything. He pulls his hand away and a little, desperate sound crawls up Keith's throat at the loss of contact. His face and breath are burning. He presses his forehead to the hollow of Shiro's neck, trying to cool himself, trying to work up courage, trying think past the steady beat of need pounding through his body. Shiro's hand against his back is the only thing keeping him steady. It wouldn't take much. He's been on that edge for minutes beyond count. He holds himself still, lets himself wind down, slowing his breath.

A light flickers against his eyelids, not sparking, but faint, like the first hint of sunrise. Shiro stills against him, breath drawing in surprise. Keith's eyes shoot open because—there's light in the water.

For a moment, he thinks his mind is gone. This, at last—this is the final thing that breaks him, and none of it has been real. A handful of blue spots glow and dance in the waves closest to him, flickering and changing. It's impossible and beautiful.

"That's what I wanted you to see," Shiro says against his temple, rough as stone, reaching out to drag his long-clawed fingers through the water, making a thousand new lights appear in his wake. "This."

The heat leaches out of Keith as he watches, ebbing away with the play of light against his face while he looks and wonders and tries to understand.

"What—what is it?"

Shiro rolls one shoulder. "I don't know."

That answer is bent and strange. Keith blinks, breathes, shifts. Shiro has more curiosity than that. He searches and finds and hoards, organizes artifacts in a secret cove and brings Keith a new treasure every day—if he were human, if he were at the Garrison, his room would have been scattered and messy and piled in books and off-regulation posters. He would have been one of those horrible students that got an A without trying, but read the textbook anyway, just for the joy of it.

He can see it with a clarity that steals his breath. And still, Shiro doesn't know what this is. His kind must have a word for it, or a thought at least. Keith looks up at his face. The last of the heat leaves him at the look on Shiro's face. It's sad in wonder. The mark on his cheek looks worse in the dark. Under the skin of Keith's thighs, he can feel lines of scar pressing into him and the edge of the bandage Shiro never needed but hasn't taken off yet.

One hand is still pressed against Keith's back, holding him close, and Keith thinks with a new chill racing across his skin: I could lose this.

"It's cool," he says instead. It's beautiful.

" Cool. " Shiro rolls the word on his tongue like he can taste it and smiles with a hint of teeth. "It is. They look like your stars." From down there he means. He nods to the water. It's a little offer, something Keith can pick up or leave at will. Shiro never asks more than Keith wants to give.

The water is the deepest black and cold now that his blood isn't rushing. Shiro's hard grip on his hand is the only thing that grounds him as he dips below the waves. It's overwhelming for a moment; he squeezes Shiro's hand and blinks and eases into the feeling of waves pushing and pulling him.

Shiro is wrong. They're better than stars. Bluer and brighter, moving in tandem with the waves around him. Keith wants to show Shiro a picture of a nebula and a galaxy and ask if they look familiar. It seems like something he would like, like something he would want to know.

Keith stays as long as he can, holding his breath, Shiro's grip on his hand tightening imperceptibly as the moments pass until it almost hurts. He pulls Keith up without waiting for signal, lifting all of him at once, as if Keith weighs nothing to him—and he doesn't, but Shiro is still gentle.

He smiles, bright eyed even in the dark, a little wild. "Like stars?"

"Yeah."

The scar over the bridge of Shiro's nose, the white in his hair that must be the result of some trauma, the myriad of marks on his body, thearm … Shiro is a catalog of little agonies. He remembers Shiro hands on him and heats, but then he imagines Shiro in the arena, tearing some shapeless, monstrous thing apart with the same hands. It aches.

"Why do you come out here?"

Shiro blinks. "To see you."

"But—why?" he asks and hopes it doesn't come out as bad as he knows it will. He's always been horrible saying the right thing at the right time. This is neither. "Why do you spend time with me?"

"Because I like you?" Shiro is the one close to snapping now.

That's not how Keith meant it. This isn't about him. He doesn't know the first thing about Shiro's life and it's becoming unavoidable. Keith knows he fights. Keith knows he wins. Keith knows he's lonely. Nothing substantive. Nothing a friend should know—and they're more than that.

Keith drags his hand over his face. He's still warm. "But—what do you do when you're not here?"

The waves lap at them while Shiro weighs his answer, and then says matter-of-fact and so predictable Keith could almost say it in tandem, "Fight."

Keith can't tell if he's being deliberately coy. "Is that all you do?" he asks softly.

Shiro doesn't answer. He looks away to the horizon and the haze of clouds there, visible even in the dark. The light in the water reflects and dapples over his face in soft tones. It's the first time he's been deceptive. It's the first time he's tried. Or—it's the first time Keith's noticed.

"Yes," he murmurs finally.

I'm good at it , he'd said, as if that was as good a reason as any. He's not looking at Keith. His eyes are fastened on the waves, light still glittering against his eyes. For the very first time, Keith feels a new thread of unease wind through him. He draws his fingers down one of the lines of scar on Shiro's pale skin. It's old and faded, oddly curved and curled, scrawled over his collarbone like writing.

When he catches Shiro's eyes again, they're resigned, as if he knows Keith is going to ask and wants to talk about anything less than that.

Keith shoves the question away, but he can't imagine the creature that made it, and he finds suddenly, he can't imagine losing him.


He doesn't go back that night. Shiro keeps him close and safe and as warm as he can. The next day dawns with the same brightness. He wakes alone, spread out on the white sand under a blanket he's never seen before that's stiff with salt and for a moment he panics, until the memory of a voice in his ear comes back to him. I'll be back soon.

He drifts off and the next time he wakes, it's to the feeling of cold lips on his forehead and the sun is high and hot above them. Shiro kisses him awake slowly. The shell he presses to Keith's chest is gold and polished like glass. Keith has a waking vision of his shack years from now, long abandoned, of someone opening the door and shells and glass and pearls and bone spilling out in a cascade. It would only be right.

"You slept so long," Shiro muses as he watches Keith marvel at the offering.

"Sorry," Keith tries to say. He has to stop and clear his throat to make it come out clear. There's a hitch in Keith's breath. A night in the cold was a bad idea. It comes and goes, but Shiro's presence chases it from his mind. He pushes his face into Shiro's chest and settles there against him, surf lapping at them both. He's still burning—half in embarrassment at what they did the night before, half in want.

"Are you—" Shiro cuts himself off, black eyes pinched at the corners. "Are you okay?"

"Nah. I'm fine." Shiro doesn't look convinced, head cocked to one side, animal. "Really," Keith insists.

Shiro's eyes are dark even in the light, pupils wide. Keith thinks his must be a match. He wants to reach down and press a hand between his legs, try to keep the heat in him at bay before he embarrasses himself—but it's too late. Shiro has a bead on him like Keith is a thing he's hunted for weeks and finally caught.

He buries his fingers in Keith's hair and kisses him, pulling him back into the water until they're both floating and Keith is lost in it.

Without preamble he tugs Keith's head back further, threading his fingers in Keith's sopping hair and kisses his neck. "You want me." He rocks Keith against him, gentle and sweet, just enough friction to get him going in full. It's not ideal; the cold is working against him. Shiro reads it and lifts him onto the rocks.

The stone under him is warm and wave-polished and sometimes he forgets how Shiro is outsized. He braces himself on the rock above Keith's head, torso fully exposed to where it blends into black scales. There's nothing obvious about his anatomy; Keith wants to be brave and ask, but he can't work himself up to it. He's scared. He's scared of all of this, but not more than he wants it and Shiro's gaze is darker than the ocean in a storm. A drop of water slides off his bangs and falls to Keith's cheek. It sides down to the hinge of Keith's jaw and down his neck to the hollow of his throat, Shiro's eyes tracking its progress. He knows.

With almost embarrassing care, Shiro runs his hands up Keith's thighs and back down, petting and parting, comforting, working him up slowly or maybe trying to moderate himself. Keith can't tell, but the crease in Shiro's brow says he's frustrated. They're not compatible like this; there's so little he can do that won't ruin Keith and that's half the fear and half the anticipation.

The swim trunks come off like he's picking the ribbon off a package. Keith hides his eyes against his arm, lying back against the rock so Shiro can move him how he wants, so he can pull the wet cloth away from Keith's skin and then he's exposed completely.

One claw skates up the inside of his leg and Keith feels himself go still and pliant, need ripping through him so fast it steals his breath.

"You want me," Shiro repeats and bends for a kiss.

It's melting slow. His lips drag to the corner of his mouth and down his throat, lathing his tongue over the mark he left there. He moves down and then presses a kiss to his hip, nipping at the skin with terrible gentleness, teeth brushing enough to raise goosebumps across his hips and make him twitch.

He's hard. It's been too long since he did anything and he knows he won't be able to hold out long enough to make it good. He should have practiced. He should have tried, at least, but he never let himself imagine getting this far.

Keith digs his fingers into Shiro's hair, grounding himself. "I want you," he concedes.

Shiro pulls back to look up at him, his bangs obscuring one wide eye. "Really?"

That's another thing he's picked up. "Really what?"

He doesn't answer, but he pushes his face to Keith's chest and stays there, unmoving, breath drawing goosebumps across Keith's skin. It hadn't occurred to Keith he could get overwhelmed. It hadn't occurred to Keith he might not know how much he was wanted.

Keith isn't good at this. He's new to all of it and he's going to keep messing up, but he can at least be honest. "You're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time."

Shiro pins him with a look. Keith feels himself heat, which is stupid when Shiro's mouth and hands have been in more places than they haven't. Whatever Shiro sees in his face makes him smile—makes him grin, wide, before he bends back to Keith chest and this time there's intent. He kisses his way down Keith's stomach and over the line of hair there and then there's hot breath over Keith where he's embarrassingly hard.

"No teeth," Keith groans.

Shiro shoots him a look. "I won't," he says, like he has a right to be offended that Keith would even ask. But there's a permanent sore spot on Keith's bottom lip that says otherwise, no matter how careful Shiro tries to be.

He's shaking half in terror and half in thrill, but this is happening and he trusts Shiro more than his apprehension. Slowly, he realizes the hands parting his legs are shaking too. Worry leaves him so fast he wants to laugh, but then Shiro presses his mouth to the inside of his thigh and he's shaking for a different reason.

It's slow the way he needs it to be. Shiro feels him out inch by inch, learning where to press and worry and how to bite without hurting and the light around them gets brighter and brighter, stealing his vision until he's a mess in Shiro's hands. His arms are the last strong part of him. He anchors himself around Shiro's neck, hold tight enough that he's pulled off the rocks entirely when Shiro starts moving against him.

"This is how you wanted it before," Shiro says against his ear as he guides Keith's legs around his waist and grips his hip with one hand, guiding him up and down against Shiro's bare skin in little motions. The hand is big enough to encompass more than his hip. He's too far gone to respond. His eyes are wide, focused on nothing but the tension rising in him, like something in him is ready to snap.

It's never felt like this, he means to say, but only gets as as far as opening his mouth before Shiro changes his grip and a cut-off cry leaps out of his throat.

Shiro turns his head, nosing at him until he pulls back enough that he can take Keith's mouth in a messy kiss neither of them know how to meet.

It ends like something snapping in him—a pull he fights and chases when he feels it rising. He breathes and breathes, unhinges his arms from around Shiro's neck and presses both palms to center of Shiro's chest, feeling Shiro's heart pound like a drum.

He rocks Keith against him another moment. His breath is harsh and he's given up pretending he breathes through his mouth alone. It sounds wrong, but it's dear and it matches how Keith feels: overwhelmed, in the best way.

The sun on his shoulders, the rock at his back, the sea air around him; it's all tinted with light. Nothing's felt so good in his life. Shiro is looking down at him, pupils still blown, mouth wet and dark and red. He bit his own lip, Keith realizes. He doesn't speak.

"What about you?" Keith asks around the haze flooding him.

The water is too dark; there's blackness below them and he can't tell what's Shiro and what isn't.

"No." Shiro's pupils are blown. They look like the eyes of a predator before the kill. "I would break you."

Keith doubts it, but a shudder chases up his spine at the thought. Shiro presses closer, nosing through Keith's damp hair, some redirected affection while he tries to come down. It seems unfair. Keith considers trying to persuade him, but his mouth finds its way to Keith's neck again and this time there's intent right at the edge of pain. He leaves a trail of little marks on Keith that stand out in the mirror in the morning, but in that moment he's too swept up in need to mind.

He works Keith to the edge twice more before they go back. It's almost sunset by then and Keith's mind is far gone. The sky is red and the sea is red and there's some proverb about it he can't recall. It's either a good omen or a bad one. It seems like something he should remember. Once they arrive, Shiro sets Keith up on the dock and pushes his face into the soft part of Keith's stomach and stays right there, arms looped around Keith's waist for minutes and minutes. Keith doesn't know what's wrong or how to fix it—or if anything is, if anything can. His vision is still bright around the edges. Shiro's hair is soft under his fingers and he threads his fingers through it to feel the slide between his fingers, wondering how it is he can lose himself in something that simple.

When Shiro speaks, it's low and rough and almost soft enough for the wind to carry it away, but Keith can feel the words against his skin as much as hear them. "I wish I could stay."

Keith feels his the air go cold in his chest. His throat seizes up for a moment before he clears it. "You can, if you want."

Shiro doesn't respond. He doesn't move. Keith stills his hand. The mood is starting to seep into him, into the air around them, and even the kind light of the sunset can't dispel it. He's breathing hard, he realizes.

Finally, Shiro draws back. His eyes are half-lidded and shadowed to full black, even so close. "Will you hold onto something for me?" he asks.

As if Keith's life isn't already a monument to all the minutiae Shiro has entrusted to him. Keith nods and Shiro searches his face for a moment before he presses something hard into the palm of Keith's hand.

"You can hang on to it," he says, a little breathless, a little desperate. Keith is used to the odd echo of air rushing through the gills on Shiro's neck now, like a second voice. It's more obvious when he's excited—or scared. "Please—Keith—I want you to keep it."

His eyes glitter. Keith pulls his hand up, turning it over in the light, trying to figure out what kind of shell or artifact it is and then realizes at the same moment something cold drips down his spine: it's a scale.

It's one of Shiro's, heavy and solid and different than he expected, different than he would have imagined if he'd bothered to. It's not black at all, he realizes when he holds it up the dying sun. It's violet, deep and clear, with the same iridescence as the shells hanging around Keith's neck.

"You'll keep it?" Shiro asks, desperate.

He wants to say no on impulse. There's something disconcerting about the light in Shiro's eyes. It's a match for the color of the sky, like it can't decide to storm or not and it's seething in its own indecision. But he can't say no. He hasn't, yet. He won't.

"I'll keep it," he promises.


They aren't two pieces of the same whole.

Keith stays on the dock for minutes after Shiro leaves. He gave too much, his body tells him in a dozen little ways. He didn't give enough, he thinks, also, but greater than either little thread of regret is a satisfaction that carries down to his bones and makes him feel if he died then and there, it would be enough.

Keith adds the scale to his necklace, winding twine around it like a spider's web, until it's almost obscured by the thin brown string and he can only see what it is by the color that flashes between the bindings when he holds it in the light. He presses it against his chest as he falls asleep that night and wonders what it means and wonders what he's doing.

He wonders what this will be later. If he'll regret it years down the line or wonder if it was real, if Shiro will leave and Keith will still be right there, or something else entirely—and then he breathes and feels the catch in his lungs on the intake and knows that's it. He knows what's waiting for him.

As long as this lasts, it's his.