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Keith prepares for New Galran’s Hoverbike Show for a month. Keith loves everything about hoverbikes, and so when he hears there’s going to a convention style event, he’s one of the first to book tickets. Since the war ended it’s been politics and work and rebuilding, and this will be the first truly frivolous thing either of them have gotten to do.
Keith, normally pretty reserved, books the tickets and starts telling Shiro everything about the event and what he’s excited about seeing. He spends hours researching who’s going to be there, which booths and inventors he cannot miss, and then compiles it all into a master doc that he copies Shiro onto.
Because of this, before they even step foot in New Galran Shiro knows everything they’re doing.
It’s cute how passionate Keith’s become about this. Shiro had nudged him to get back into hoverbikes in the weeks after the war had officially ended, and Keith had taken to it like a fish to water. All that unfocused energy had poured right into the new hobby, and Keith was better for it.
The weekend of the event is a blitz of activity. New Galran’s Hoverbike Show is a galaxy-wide event, and because of that it’s packed to the brim both with event-goers and things to see. Following Keith’s itinerary, they rush from booth to show to back to their ship to dump Keith’s many purchases. There’s few breaks, and Shiro does his best not to interrupt. He only interjects an energy bar or a bottle of water when he thinks Keith needs to refuel.
For the most part Shiro just hangs back as the bag-holder and steadfast companion. He likes hover bikes of course, but it’s Keith who’s shining here, and Shiro’s not about to get in the way of that. He enjoys watching Keith eyes-alight and engaged about something that isn’t life or death.
Keith talks to vendors and inventors and racers whenever they go. He recognizes so many of them due to all his research, and easily keeps up with any of the conversations. It’s such a stark contrast to his time in Voltron, Shiro thinks. Keith in his element just lights up, and he’s a presence to behold.
By the end of the weekend Keith has made more than a couple friends, and received a lot of contact numbers from both humans and aliens seeking to keep in touch.
“Next year I want to enter,” Keith says as they finish a walk down the showcase street.
The street is full of private and professional hoverbike owners who have brought everything from vintage bikes to experimental one-of-a-kind pieces. Shiro knows Keith’s taken particular interest in the experimental side of hoverbikes.
“You should,” Shiro says with a smile. “People would love it, your bike is starting to look really unique.”
Keith preens at the compliment despite his fatigue. They’re taking the fifth trip back to the ship, arms loaded down with riding clothes, engine parts, and at least one gallon of metallic thermoelectric paint Keith wanted to try.
The ship is cool and dark when they step into it, and it’s a reprieve from the dual suns desert heat of this planet. All the purchases get tucked safely into the cargo storage, and then Shiro coaxes Keith back to the couch.
“But—“ Keith gestures back toward the show.
“Just for a moment,” Shiro interrupts, smile gentle. He takes a seat on the couch and holds out his hand. Keith comes to him.
The second Keith sits, it’s like the weight of the weekend finally hits him. Shiro has been noticing the overstimulation building all day today, and he’s glad that Keith’s finally letting himself feel it. He’d done so well building up an energy reserve for the weekend, but this would be a lot for anyone. It’s important that Keith respect his own limits, even when he’s excited.
“Here, have some water,” Shiro says. It’s ice cold, and Keith’s shoulders drop the moment he takes a sip.
He leans into Shiro, and Shiro wraps his arm around him. He makes sure to keep the touch firm and watch for any signs that even this may be too much. When Keith’s over his own limits he can shut down completely, and even comfort can get grating on his senses.
“Good. How’re you feeling?” Shiro asks after a minute of silence.
Keith takes a breath and then lets it out. “Tired,” he admits. “My head hurts.”
“How much more is on the schedule?” Shiro knows the answer, but he wants to gauge how Keith feels about it.
“There’s another trick show in two hours, and I didn’t get to the last merch tables.”
Shiro hums in agreement, then lets the silence linger.
“I want to go, but…” Keith trails off. His fingers start plucking at the fibers of the blanket beside them. Shiro watches the movement, and then reaches on his other side and picks up the squishcube. It pretty much lives on the couch now because Keith likes something in hand when they’re watching TV.
“It’s okay if we don’t get to everything,” Shiro says. He takes the squishcube and offers it to Keith who takes it immediately.
Keith makes a humph of disagreement, but then tilts his head into Shiro’s shoulder. His hands dig into the plush surface of the cube.
“And if we stopped now, it’s not like you didn’t get all those numbers. You still have a bunch of contacts you can follow up on.”
Keith’s eyes fall closed when Shiro’s hand trails up the back of his neck and into his hair. “I guess that’s true.”
“I can tell you’re close to your line,” Shiro says. “But whatever you want to do, I’ll follow your lead.”
Keith makes a sound of relief when Shiro rubs firmly across his scalp.
“I want to, but you’re probably right. I— I hurt.”
Shiro knows it’s not the physical kind of pain that he’s talking about.
“Alright,” Shiro says. He’s been passive most of the weekend, but now it’s his time to take charge. “Let’s spend the rest of the evening in then. We can relax, have dinner and an early bedtime before we have to fly back tomorrow. How does that sound?”
Keith’s head nods against his shoulder. “And it’s okay we didn’t do everything?”
“It’s very okay sweetheart. We did so much, and we had fun.”
“Yeah. It was fun,” Keith says in that soft way of his that always makes Shiro’s heart clench.
##
The first order of business in the caring and tending to Keith is to send Keith to the shower. Showers take the edge off the overstimulation, blunting Keith’s sharpened nerves as water does to any jagged rock. Before he goes, Shiro dips to their bedroom and rifles through his closet. He returns with one of his own pullover hoodies and offers it to Keith.
Keith smiles, hugging the bundle to himself and thanking Shiro. If he brings it to his nose to breathe in the scent of the fabric as he turns away, Shiro pretends not to notice.
After Keith’s disappeared into the bathroom, Shiro goes to the kitchen tackle dinner. Likely Keith will need a comfort food tonight, so Shiro plays it safe and grabs two boxes of Mac n Cheese. He makes the pasta while poking at the ship’s controls. He turns the lights down in all their rooms, and then pushes the temperature control a few degrees cooler so Keith will be comfortable wearing the hoodie.
When the pasta is done Shiro puts two servings into heat-retaining bowls and sets the table. Keith’s still in the shower when he checks, so Shiro takes the opportunity in their secondary shower to wash up. It’s a brisk scrub and rinse, and he’s out before Keith’s even turned off the water in his shower.
“Thought we could have dinner on the couch today,” Shiro says when Keith eventually returns. He’s wearing Shiro’s hoodie and some pajama shorts. The hoodie swamps him, the long arms covering his hands. It makes him look cozy and soft.
Keith takes a seat beside him on the couch heavily. Despite the shower, he looks worn through, his body curling in on itself. All the excitement of the weekend has worn him down.
Keith pushes himself too much still. The war had required everything from them, and it hadn’t been a place Keith was able to draw boundaries. It wasn’t a situation where he was rewarded for prioritizing self care, and he still struggles to do even the smallest amount of it now. They’ve had conversations about it a dozen or more times, but rewriting the way you’ve had to live for years and years and years isn’t as simple as a conversation. Keith often can’t see the value in treating himself kindly, doesn’t think he deserves softness.
So sometimes it’s Shiro’s job to remind him.
Despite how tired he looks, this is progress. Keith is here on the couch with him now, and not forcing himself to complete everything on the itinerary. Shiro is so, so proud of him.
From the back of the couch he pulls off the grav-blanket and lays it over Keith’s lap. It’s on the medium setting because that’s the weight that Keith likes most.
“Oh,” Keith says, surprised at the thoughtfulness.
The sound makes Shiro’s whole body ache. He hates that these little things still catch Keith off guard. That Keith doesn’t expect to get care from those that love him. Keith has a history that Shiro can’t change, but it doesn’t mean that he’s not angry about it.
Shiro takes a breath, then reaches for their bowls. He hands Keith his.
They eat in mostly silence. Usually they watch something during a meal, but Shiro can tell that extra stimuli would only hurt Keith right now. Instead Shiro lets the silence wrap around them, a calming presence after the constant din of the day.
Keith eats his dinner quickly and then slides out from under the gray-blanket to get more. Shiro hadn’t managed to get him many calories in energy bars today, so it pleases him now to see Keith getting another serving of food.
“Oh good,” Shiro comments when Keith returns, “I didn’t want to have to fit leftovers into the fridge.”
Keith snorts. He knows Shiro well enough now to know that he’s complimenting Keith on eating more. Shiro’s always trying to positively reinforce Keith’s eating
“Uh huh,” Keith says, giving him a fond look.
Shiro lifts up the blanket so Keith can get back under it. This time he sits a smidge closer, leaning his side into Shiro’s. Keith has to shake his arm to free a hand from the oversized hoodie sleeve and take up his fork once more.
It’s such a charming image that Shiro just wants to gather him up and squeeze.
By the time they finish eating, Keith is starting to noticeably droop. His head tips toward Shiro’s shoulder and more than once he catches Keith taking a deep breath of the scent.
There’s only one thing to do.
“I’m ready for bed, how about you?”
It’s early, but Keith doesn’t argue. Shiro shoos him off to the bathroom to get ready for bed while gathering up their bowls. In the kitchen Shiro does a quick tidying up and then makes sure the ship is all locked up for the night. He meets Keith exiting the bathroom, and makes quick work of brushing his teeth.
By the time he gets to the bedroom, Keith’s in bed. The hoodie has been stripped off and is lying on their ‘stuff-chair’ beside the bed. There’s a bump in the comforter with just a mop of his dark hair visible.
Shiro walks to the bed and then strips himself down to his underwear. He slides into his side of the bed, hitting the button for the lights to dim the rest of the way.
Immediately there’s a shuffling from the lump under the covers, and octopus-like limbs wind themselves around Shiro.
He laughs softly, adjusting himself so that Keith can cuddle close. Shiro’s own arms wrap around Keith, holding him to his chest. There’s a deep breath and then a sigh with a sound of contentment. Keith’s face nuzzles against Shiro’s bare chest.
“I like when you don’t wear a shirt,” Keith says, muffled from beneath the blankets.
“I know,” Shiro says. It’s not so much a statement of romance than it is of comfort. Keith has a lot of sensory issues with fabrics when he’s tired. Keith hasn’t come to that conclusion himself, but Shiro has noticed and made accommodations.
They’ve been sharing their space since the war ended, so this kind of closeness has become second nature. In the beginning it made Shiro’s heart pound, his love for Keith pressing up through his chest so strongly he’d wanted to speak it into life.
But there’d been so many unknowns, so many things to figure out about how they were going to live without the war that they never quite got back around to something as simple as love.
Shiro thinks it will happen eventually. Tangled up like this, it would take very little to tip them over into kisses.
It’s not a rush though. Not when he can have Keith like this, warm and safe in his arms. Keith needs stability, and that’s Shiro’s main focus. He wants Keith to get to be Keith before they become Shiro-and-Keith.
“It was fun, the show.” The blankets shuffle and an eye peeks out. “Did you have a good time?”
Shiro squeezes him, making sure his prosthetic stays as gentle as possible. “I did. It was cool you knew all that stuff. You really impressed those people at the HovFuel booth.”
Keith tucks his head back down, shy. “I didn’t know they hadn’t heard of the carbon refill credit program.”
“That’ll probably help them a lot.”
“Yeah I hope so.” There’s a pause and then, “So it wasn’t like… annoying? I know you’re not as into bikes as I am.”
Shiro can’t help the kiss he drops on Keith’s hair. “No, it wasn’t annoying. It was a lot of fun. I’m glad we could do this. It was nice to be away from the Garrison doing something different.”
Keith makes a sound of agreement and then cuddles close once more. Shiro shifts, tilting his body to put a little more weight on top of Keith and slide the prosthetic mostly under the pillow. The man trills, nuzzling Shiro’s collarbone again.
“Yeah?” Shiro sounds entirely too besotted, but he doesn’t try to hold it back.
Keith’s hand trails up and down Shiro’s human bicep, tracing the skin. He does this sometimes in bed, a sort of stim that seems to help him relax. Shiro had once tried to return the favor, but the light-touch had made Keith shiver in a way that was not good.
It’s been firm touches ever since.
Silence spreads across their bedroom. Keith breathes against his throat, hand making swirls or designs up and down Shiro’s arm. Sometimes Shiro notices a particular pattern of swirls that form letters on his skin. If he focuses enough sometimes he can pick out a four letter word slipped in among the nonsense.
After ten minutes of silence Shiro feels it scrawled across his skin. It makes his heart trip over itself with a bone-deep pining.
But he doesn’t speak it aloud and Keith doesn’t either. They’ve been in a rush all their lives to do the next big thing, and maybe this one thing is allowed to take its time. Maybe for once Shiro wants the luxury of wasting time.
“How’s your headache?” Shiro asks after another patch of comfortable silence.
“Better.”
Shiro’s hand slides up Keith’s bare back and to the base of his skull. There he makes firm trails up through Keith’s hair.
“Better,” Keith says on a soft breath.
Shiro keeps at it, making sure to make different paths over his head so as to not trigger Keith’s sensitized nerves.
“I always forget how much stuff like that can be,” Keith eventually admits. “The lights and sounds and people.”
Shiro hums his agreement. He doesn’t get as overwhelmed as Keith does, but it was still a lot.
“I feel like I used to be better at it.”
“I think you only used to power through the pain of it,” Shiro says gently. “But I’m glad you didn’t this evening.”
There’s a silence that’s filled with the weight of Keith thinking.
“It’s… hard.” Keith says eventually. “Like I knew being part of Voltron was hard, we were just so on all the time. Now that it’s all stopped, it’s so much harder to be on. Even when it’s only for a couple hours. Even when it’s something I really, really want to do.”
Shiro knows the feeling. He knows how hard it is now to do even a fraction of what he’d been doing during the war. Coming down from that kind of stress is like aging a decade all at once. He’s in the prime of his physical fitness but at the same time he’d never felt more fragile.
“I need so much more rest than I used to,” Shiro says. “Even when I’m having a good time doing something. It’s like all the rest I didn’t get these last couple of years has built up. A rest-debt.”
Circles are drawn over the crook of his arm and down his forearm. Shiro digs his fingers into the stiff muscles at the back of Keith’s neck.
“I don’t like it,” Keith says. Then, after a beat, “But I get it.”
“You don’t like paying the rest-debt with me?” Shiro asks, just to tease.
“No- that’s not—“ Keith presses his lips to Shiro’s shoulder and blows a raspberry. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Shiro laughs and wraps both his arms back around Keith to squeeze him. “I know, I know sweetheart, I’m just teasing you.”
He hears the catch in Keith’s breath, then his body relaxes completely.
“You make it not so bad.” This comes after another minute of quiet.
Shiro buries his face in Keith’s hair and breathes in the scent of his shampoo— vanilla and bergamot. It’s the only kind that Keith uses, and the scent memory of it is so inherently Keith .
“You make it not so bad too,” Shiro says into his hair. “I’m glad I’m here with you. I’m glad we did this weekend. I’m just— I’m just glad.”
He means that with every tender bit of his heart.
Keith’s hand stills, then one finger draws what can only be a heart right on the underside of his forearm
“Me too.”
There’s no more talking after that. Shiro keeps holding tight as Keith’s body loosens and his breathing grows long and slow. It’s so precious, so important that Shiro gets to be here, that he gets to care for Keith like this.
And it’s the thought of that great and awe-inspiring gift he’s been given that soothes the last of Shiro’s worries. Keith may always be the type to push too hard, to run after things too passionately, but that’s okay because he’ll always have Shiro right there next to him, showing him that he also deserves love and care and rest.