Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The afternoon air sits hot and heavy over densely crowded city streets, still thick with humidity from the flash thunderstorm that rolled through just an hour ago. No breeze winds its way through the towering offices and apartment buildings. There is nothing to stir the leaves of manicured crepe myrtles or the limp flags hanging from the light posts that line the sidewalks.

In a word: misery.

And inside the dilapidated food truck that Shiro operates out of, it’s approximately one-thousand degrees worse.

With his luck, it should be no surprise that the air conditioner chose to crap out on the hottest day of the year. It figures that all Shiro has to help hold the heat at bay is a flimsy paper plate made to serve as a makeshift fan. And of course his flimsy cotton tee is already soaked from collar to hem, clinging skintight to him with every movement.

The sweat trickling down his back provides steady discomfort, as does the fabric plastered to his torso, and Shiro briefly, semi-deliriously wishes he’d gone the route of an ice cream truck. Or maybe gelato. Shaved ice. Sure, baking has been one of his chief passions since his teenage years, but he could get creative with ice cream flavors, too, and the thought of a freezer large enough to crawl inside of has its own particular appeal.

“Uh, hey. You okay in there?”

A potential customer.

Shiro tosses his fan-plate aside like a frisbee and tries to regain a little of his usual composure. Tries being the operative word, because he can feel the swamp-ass and beaded sweat along his brow, and it’s hard to muster polite eye contact with a stranger while being steamed alive.

“Hi! I’m doing great.” A rivulet of sweat slides down the curve of his scarred nose and drips onto his chest, disappearing somewhere between his pecs. “How can I help you?”

The guy standing at the service window has aviators sitting perched atop his head, pinning back long locks that might otherwise frame his face. And it’s a nice face—high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a stark prettiness to his overall look that calls to mind the striking beauty of barren deserts. Or he looks like the kind of guy who might roadtrip across the southwest on a whim, anyway.

There’s just a touch of redness along the heights of his cheeks and a little dampness around the collar of his shirt, but elsewise he’s unaffected by the torturous heat, despite wearing black from head-to-toe. The slight furrow in his brow reads concerned, despite Shiro’s strained assurances.

“I’m partial to red velvet,” the handsome customer says, thumbing his chin as he skims down the eraser board menu propped in the window.

“One red velvet cupcake, coming up,” Shiro says, soldiering on with a smile. There’s a moment of heavenly bliss as he opens the chiller and picks out the prettiest red velvet among the bunch, lingering just a second longer to let the cool, sugar-scented air waft over his sweat-slicked skin.

Then it’s back to the window with the cupcake delicately pinched between his prosthetic fingers, thrilled by the prospect of making his first sale of the day. “Okay, that’ll be three-fifty.”

“No air-conditioning?” Red Velvet asks as he fishes a wallet out of his back pocket and leafs out a few rumpled bills.

“It decided it didn’t want to work today.” And now Shiro is back to fanning himself with the plate, cute customer be damned. No point in trying to put on a brave face when he’s two degrees away from melting anyway.

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Red Velvet lingers in front of the service window as he takes his first bite, giving Shiro a front-row seat to his reaction. It’s no issue, really—it isn’t as though there’s a line waiting behind him, and Shiro is eager to hear some feedback from his first real customer in ages. Something. Anything.

“This is really good,” Red Velvet says before going in for a second bite. Cream cheese frosting and red sugar fleck his lips afterward, and he’s thorough in licking the mess clean. “You could charge five bucks for this. Six, even.”

The color on Shiro’s cheeks isn’t all from the heat anymore. “Thanks. I mean, maybe one day. Right now it’s all I can do to get anyone to come over and buy them, so...”

Red Velvet nods and leans back a little, still working on the cupcake as he peers up at the side of Shiro’s truck. He raps at the rusted siding with his knuckles, where the bottom corner of an airbrushed clown mural peeks out from under the handmade sign Shiro tried to obscure it with. “Probably because your truck is sketchy as fuck.”

“Probably,” Shiro agrees, his shoulders slumping. He thinks that’ll be the end of it—another justified comment on how bad his setup is, another lost customer—but Red Velvet sticks around like he’s curious for more. “The, uh, clown painting came courtesy of one of the past owners. Got it at a state repossession sale for cheap.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I think people made meth back here.” Shiro glances around the narrow workspace. He’d cleaned it from ceiling to floor with a pressure washer before he added in the new refrigeration units and warming boxes, but the scorch marks down the walkway and up the back doors had never budged.

Red Velvet works on the last few bites of his cupcake, nodding along as if that reveal was to be expected. “Not gonna lie. From the outside, it still kinda looks like it could be a mobile meth lab.”

Shiro can’t do much else but hang his head, accepting that judgment. The careful placement of the sign had been a band-aid solution at best, and even now it's peeling at the edges. It turns out cheap paint and rusted metal don’t work wonders when it comes to adherence.

“Might be one again soon if this bakery stuff doesn’t work out,” Shiro jokes, before remembering that he’s not shooting the shit with Matt; this is still a customer he’s talking to, however easy the conversation is. “I, uh, I’m kidding, obviously. Sorry, that was—”

“You don’t look like the type to go Breaking Bad,” Red Velvet laughs, his unriled demeanor immediately putting Shiro back at ease. “I wasn’t worried. Hey, could I snag a bottled water?”

“Of course,” Shiro answers, borderline chipper, and it’s only as he rummages through the cooler for a cold one that he remembers his body is still dying a slow heat death. A chance glance down reveals that his white tee has gone full-on translucent, and Shiro grapples with the realization that he’s been holding an entire conversation while looking like a wet t-shirt contest attendee.

He pops back up in the window with an icy bottle and a smile he’s determined to maintain, despite the embarrassment that’s deepening his flush. “On the house, for being so understanding about... all of this.”

Shiro makes a vague gesture that encompasses himself, still actively melting into a puddle, and the deteriorating food truck around him.

“Nice.”

It’s only then that Shiro notices the sleek wallet back in Red Velvet’s hand, wedged between two fingers. He watches on, puzzled by the entirely normal sequence of events, as Red Velvet fishes a crisp bill out from among the rest and stretches up to stuff it into the mostly disused tip jar sitting in the window.

“Oh, wow! A tip?” His genuine excitement is too much, Shiro realizes in the same instant the words leave his mouth. A little too desperate and pathetic to be a good look, probably, but it’s been so long since anyone has taken a chance on his admittedly creepy-looking truck, much less offered him anything extra.

“For your suffering,” Red Velvet says, offering Shiro a lazy little salute. “And a really amazing cupcake.”

Shiro refrains from checking the tip jar until Red Velvet is well down the block, his lean, dark figure disappearing around a corner in a shimmering blur from the heat and steam radiating off of the streets. The single bill looks comically lonesome in the oversized mason jar; Shiro turns it around in his hands, peering through the slight distortion of the glass to better make out the numbers printed on the bill, and nearly drops the jar onto the truck’s steel flooring.

A fifty. For a cupcake and a bottle of water.

Fixing the truck’s air conditioning costs about a month’s worth of rent money, but the price is well worth it when Red Velvet turns up again three days later in the gravel lot beside Olkari Park, waiting patiently in line behind the gaggle of children cleaning Shiro out of free samples.

“Hey, it’s my first repeat customer.”

Red Velvet’s hands are still deep in his pockets as he saunters forward to the window. His eyebrows lift into the dark shag of his hair, locks of it tumbling wild down over his shoulders. “I’m your first? Really?”

“Oof. Yeah.” Shiro winces, but it’s not as bad of a self-burn as he’d initially thought. Later than he’d have liked, sure, but it’s a nice little milestone and he’s rather pleased that it’s Red Velvet he managed to hook.

The distractingly pretty man makes a thoughtful noise, somewhere between a grunt and acknowledgment, and then steps forward to extend his hand up through the service window. “Keith.”

Keith. It’s nice to have a name to go with the face—and the face is just as nice as last time. Today, Keith’s hair hangs loose, framing intense eyes and a finely angled jaw. He’s wearing a leather jacket without even breaking a sweat, and Shiro envies his effortless cool.

Shiro reaches out to meet him halfway, carefully enveloping Keith’s slender hand in the curl of steely prosthetic fingers.  “Shiro. Glad I didn’t scare you off last time.”

Keith’s grip is firm but friendly, those slim fingers surprisingly strong where they squeeze back against Shiro’s thoughtfully-gauged pressure. Paler skin peeks out from the cover of his fingerless gloves, but everywhere else he sports a sunkissed tan; his nails are bitten right down to the bed, blunt along the edges. And his smile is small but decidedly warm.

“Red velvet again, or are you in the mood for something new?”

“I think I ought to branch out,” Keith shrugs. He spends a minute looking over the day’s menu, but his dark eyes eventually slide their way back up to the man behind the counter. “What do you recommend, Shiro?”

“I have a weakness for chocolate, personally,” Shiro says after a few moments of consideration, “but I’m especially proud of how the strawberry rolls turned out this morning, too.”

“Then I’ll have one of those, if that’s okay.” He pulls out a few dollars and sets them on the counter before asking, “Do you bake them in there?”

“Oh, no. No, that would be a nightmare,” Shiro laughs as he grabs Keith’s order and tucks away the cash. “I have a friend who owns a commercial bakery—she does wedding cakes and stocks local grocers—so she lets me borrow her workspace at like, two in the morning, in exchange for running some deliveries on her behalf. The truck’s just for making sales and building a customer base.”

Keith’s expression alights as Shiro passes him a picture-perfect strawberry roll on a paper saucer. “Gonna have a place of your own one day? Brick-and-mortar?”

“Well, that’s the dream.” Shiro leans on the counter, chin propped in his hand. His eyebrows lift high as he watches Keith bite into the cream-filled cake, devouring half of it in one go. “How is it?”

Keith’s mouth is still stuffed as he muffles out, “A lot better than anything Hostess makes.”

Shiro can’t help but laugh, nose wrinkling at the unexpected praise. “Please, put that on Yelp.”

Keith gives him a thumbs up as he stuffs the rest of the cake into his mouth at once, claps the crumbs off of his hands, and then leans against the truck, right next to the open service window. “Sure. It’ll read, ‘Little Debbie who? Baked with lots of love and absolutely zero meth, despite the clown truck’s sordid history. Would visit again.’ How’s that?”

Shiro rubs the heel of his palm across his eyes, still grinning. “Might be just what I need to break into the soccer mom market. Finally get some birthday requests.”

Keith hums in response; the low, purring note strikes a chord that reverberates pleasantly down Shiro’s spine.

“Yeah. What kid wouldn’t want a... chocolate lion cupcake?” Keith muses, reading at random off of the posted menu. A smile tugs one corner of his mouth. “Does it actually look like a lion?”

“It does,” Shiro answers with some reluctance, his head sagging forward. The animal theme had seemed like a fun idea at three-fifteen this morning, when he was low on sleep and high on sugar.

“Can I see?”

Shiro takes his sweet time to ensure he’s showing Keith only the best possible example of his handiwork, plucking up the finest lion of the bunch. It’s a fairly unremarkable chocolate cake, sure, but the effort all lies in the frosting: a chocolatey, three-dimensional lion piped in careful, artful strokes, with its mane and finer features detailed in dark chocolate frosting; large, pearled sugar forms bright, sparkling eyes; a careful dusting of shaved chocolate gives its fur some texture.

The reveal goes about as well as Shiro could hope. Keith’s shapely eyebrows draw upward and his dusty pink lips part, his expression shifting into a genuine look of aw, adorable.

“You made this? Really?” And then, in the same amazed breath, Keith asks, “Mind if I take a pic?”

“You’re welcome to have it, if you like it so much,” Shiro tells him, carefully setting the little lion onto the counter and sliding it toward Keith.

“You probably shouldn’t be giving your product away for free.” Keith accepts the treat nonetheless, looking down on the lion with wonder. After taking exactly one photo, he starts eating it with his usual vigor, pausing only to give Shiro a thumbs-up.

Shiro snorts. He’s not in a good place financially, it’s true, but one cupcake won’t break him. Keith more than deserves it, anyway. “Pretty sure you covered at least a dozen cupcakes with that tip from last time. Fifty bucks translates into a good bit of sugar.”

“That’s not how tips work,” Keith mumbles as he peels off the wrapper to get at the cake itself, sending dark crumbs scattering down the front of the white shirt tucked underneath his sleek jacket.

“Thanks, by the way.” Shiro stretches out his arms, his flesh-and-blood fingers laced with the aluminum composite ones of his right hand. “It really made my day. My week, actually.”

“No worries. Which reminds me,” Keith adds as he tosses his trash into the nearby can and reaches for his back pocket.

“Keith, you don’t have to,” Shiro points out, not wanting his best customer to feel obligated. “I wasn’t mentioning it to guilt you into tipping or anything.”

“I know,” Keith answers as he stuffs a crumpled bill into the empty jar, undeterred.

Despite the comfortable hum of the air conditioner above him, Shiro warms with a pleasant flush of heat. Keith’s gesture is a twofold thrill—that someone enjoys his heartfelt, lovingly-baked creations enough to reward him, and the visceral excitement of having enough cash to treat himself to takeout. Or maybe splurge on some good tea or invest in a new rolling pin. Or he could be responsible and put it toward next month’s rent...

Keith takes his leave without waiting for another word from Shiro, backing away toward a sleek, cherry-red bike parked across the lot. “Thanks for the lion, Shiro!”

Shiro checks the bill sitting curled in the bottom of the jar. This time, it’s a hundred.

“You’ve got, um... there’s something in your hair. It’s red.”

It’s been a hectic morning. Between traffic and an unexpected but welcome rush of fieldtripping daycare kids ravenous for sweets, Shiro hasn’t had a spare moment for an idle thought. For the better part of two hours, his attention has been fixed on his work and the steady drain of polite human interaction; it’s only when Keith stands himself directly in front of the service window that Shiro takes notice of his most loyal customer.

“Red?” Shiro questions, still a little breathless from the bevy of demands from the earlier crowd. He combs his fingers through his hair and sure enough they come away a sticky, syrupy red. A quick sniff test reveals the culprit. “Strawberry.”

Keith is withholding a grin, but poorly. “Busy day?”

“Like a whirlwind,” Shiro laughs as he takes the dollar bills Keith hands him. It’s a good thing, being swamped with customers—even if they’re mostly kids with sweaty allowance money pulled from socks and lots of loose change. “What do you feel like today?”

Keith answers with a drawn, thoughtful noise as he studies the short menu. “Do you have anything salty-sweet?”

Shiro picks out an oversized cookie loaded with salted caramel and crushed pretzels, dense and chewy with just the right amount of crunch. Keith is emphatic in his enjoyment of it, as always, and peppers Shiro with compliments in between bites.

Shiro smiles and blushes and laughs off the praise. It’s something he could get used to, though.

“Is there anything you don’t like?” he questions, squinting as Keith crams half the cookie into his mouth at once.

“Banana,” Keith answers without hesitation, eyes on Shiro as he licks a spot of caramel from his thumb. “Hate it.”

“Even banana bread?”

“Especially banana bread.” Keith takes a big swig of the water bottle Shiro wordlessly hands him, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hey, Shiro, do you take requests?”

Shiro pulls a pensive little frown as he thinks back. “Can’t say I’ve ever gotten a request before, honestly. I’d be happy to take yours, though.”

“Well, first,” Keith sighs, leaning in to prop his elbows on the counter; he must be standing on his tiptoes to reach it. “It’d be nice if you had something to let people know where you’ll be parked for the day. It doesn’t have to be an app or custom website or anything. A twitter account would be fine.”

Shiro braces his hands along the counter, the metal of his prosthetic clinking against the less-than-stainless steel. He sighs. “I know, I know. Believe me, Keith, I know. And I’ve tried. It’s just... it’s a lot of hassle and frustration with my current situation.”

At Keith’s dry, mildly disapproving look, Shiro fishes his battered phone from his back pocket. The screen is currently a brittle mess of cracks from an unfortunate incident in Coran’s gym (crushed by a chatty, overly flirtatious college student scooting back and forth on a rowing machine) and there’s not even a spare byte left for new apps or updates. The battery life is abysmal, too, but he can’t replace that unless he gets the screen fixed with it. Then there’s the dead speaker, and the bugs he’s grown used to since software support for the model ended last year, and the general difficulty of getting it to recognize his touch at all.

“See? The last time I tried to open twitter, it got really hot in my hand and shut itself off for half an hour.”

Keith squints up at him, either in disgust or disbelief, and then back down to the battered, crack-webbed hunk of glass and plastic in Shiro’s hand. “So, you need a new phone.”

Shiro shrugs. “I mean, it still works.”

“No,” Keith counters, brow furrowing as he shakes his head. “Shiro, what you just described is something that the rest of society considers a non-functional phone.”

“It functions...”

Keith is unconvinced, clearly, but also mercifully unwilling to press it further. “Second request,” he says, holding up two fingers. “Can you do hippos?”

“Hippos?”

“Like the lion cupcake you made,” Keith clarifies, his cheeks tinged with the faintest glow of red. “But a hippo.”

“A hippo, huh?” Shiro asks, grinning as he leans down and in, hovering a little closer to Keith. “Is that your favorite animal?”

“Since I was a kid.” There’s a moment of hesitation before Keith offers more, his smile small and almost bashful. “My dad took me to the zoo in San Francisco when I was eight or so. One of the hippos had just had a baby, and... I don’t know, I was super into it. My dad got me this hippo plush from the gift shop before we left, and I carried it around with me everywhere for the next three years.”

“That’s cute,” Shiro remarks, the slow spread of a smile catching at the corners of his mouth. He likes how Keith twists at the word and rolls his eyes, that pout too pronounced to be anything but a show. “I can’t guarantee that it’ll be great, but I’ll make you the best hippo I can.”

“I’m sure it’ll be perfect,” Keith says, jamming his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. He’s still a little pink across the tops of his cheeks, but he wears it well. “Don’t have cash on me for a tip today, but I’ll do you better next time.”

“You don’t have to do it every time, Keith. Especially when you’re dropping hundreds in my tip jar. That kinda shit can carry over for a few visits.”

“I admire your work,” Keith says with a little shrug. He lifts a leg and plants the sole of his boot against one oversized truck tire, sighing. “And I look forward to hunting down this diesel behemoth again tomorrow.”

Shiro wishes him luck—and wishes he could offer to text Keith instead, but the state of his phone’s screen means that coherent typing is, at best, a distant dream. “I’ll have a hippo with your name on it.”

“Oh. I didn’t think you meant it literally.”

Keith grins as he turns the cupcake to view it from every angle, taking in the broad nose and tiny ears, the wide open mouth and its white chocolate teeth, and the name carefully iced in delicate red script just beneath its jaws.

“Is it too much?” Shiro spent damn near half an hour on this cupcake alone, and that was on top of the dropping by the library the night before to print reference pictures of hippos and sketch out a plan. Overkill, maybe, but it’s well-worth earning Keith’s heartfelt praise.

“No, it’s perfect. I love her.” One of Keith’s fingers lightly taps the frosting-hippo’s head, almost petting it.

Moments pass. Keith continues to fawn over the cupcake, marveling aloud at every little detail.

Shiro is almost hesitant to ask, “Are you going to eat it, or...?”

“Later,” Keith says, and it’s almost strange to see him holding something sweet in his hands without immediately chomping away at it. “I want to take it home and show my family, first. Gonna hang onto her for a little while.”

Shiro laughs to himself as Keith pats the cupcake affectionately once more. “You could keep it in your freezer like couples do with wedding cake,” he adds, one-hundred percent joking.

But Keith tilts his head, perhaps seriously considering it. “I guess... I guess I could do that. Yeah, maybe. Oh, and I have something for you, too, Shiro. Don’t freak out.”

The warning is meaningless as Keith pulls out a sleek black box, the minimalistic branding catching Shiro’s eye instantly. It’s a new phone—brand new, not refurbished or picked up from a sketchy seller on craigslist—that Shiro knows is light-years beyond his budget.

“Keith... no, no, no,” Shiro groans, shrinking back into the truck. “What the hell, Keith? This is way too much.”

“That’s not all of it,” Keith replies, matter-of-fact as he stacks accessories onto the counter beside the new phone, all of it easily totalling over a thousand-dollars, retail. “It’s just the newest model of your, uh... brick. And it should work with whatever carrier you have, but let me know if you have any problems with it—”

“I do,” Shiro says, drawing his shoulders up. He slides the box back toward Keith, but seeing it so close to the precipitous drop from the service window almost makes him reconsider. “I can’t take this from you, Keith. It isn’t fair.”

Keith’s not outright rolling his eyes, but the unflinching, heavy-lidded stare he wears has the same energy.

“It is fair. This hippo cupcake,” Keith says, holding up the frosting creature as delicately as he would a living, breathing thing, “is worth this much to me,” he continues, sliding the phone and its accessories back toward Shiro. “It’s called the barter system.”

“There’s no way,” Shiro argues, shaking his head. It’s almost worth laughing over, except Keith looks so damn serious about it. “I can’t. You should keep it, Keith. You deserve it.”

“I already have a working phone, thanks. But, uh, if you don’t want this one, then I guess... I guess I‘ll just chuck it in that trash can over there,” he decides, lifting his chin in the direction of a steel city garbage can half a block away.

Primal fear of wastefulness lances Shiro through the gut. He swallows, his tongue thick and his throat suddenly parched dry. “You wouldn’t.”

Keith snatches the boxed phone before Shiro can do anything, making full eye-contact as he widens his stance and reels his arm back. “I played softball in high school. We went to state championships all four years.”

“Fine, fine, fine, I’ll take it! Fuck,” Shiro huffs as Keith gently tosses him the phone, smirking like he just pulled off the con of the century.

And in his hands, Shiro can’t deny that it’s an amazing temptation. This phone has six times the storage space his old one did, and the thought of actually being able to take pictures and listen to music again makes Shiro more emotional than he probably should be. The last time he could afford to change phones was over four years ago, and even then the one he'd gotten hadn't exactly been new.

He lets out a belated gasp as he realizes that he can finally, finally play Pokemon Go.

“This is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me. Thank you,” Shiro says, unable to do anything at all about the self-conscious blush spreading over his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. “I mean it, Keith. I really don’t know what to say.”

“Glad you like it.” Keith gnaws his lip for a moment, gaze drifting off down the street before sliding its way back to Shiro. “My motivations weren’t one-hundred percent selfless and pure, though.”

Shiro looks at him as he pops the packaging open. “Oh?”

“I was kind of hoping that I could give you my number,” Keith says, smoothing a hand through his unruly hair. “And maybe you could text me where you’ll be parked? I mean, tracking you down is worth the effort, but there are some days I just can’t find you, you know?”

“Oh. Of course, Keith,” Shiro says, grabbing a napkin and quickly scrawling his number across it. He’d never imagined that on those days where Keith never showed, he was still out there looking, hunting for Shiro’s ugly bakery truck and heading home with an empty stomach. “Text me anytime. It doesn’t have to just be about work or the truck.”

“Thanks.” After adding the number to his own phone, Keith folds the napkin with care and tucks it into a pocket along the inner lining of his jacket. “Same to you. I’m not too busy, so if you ever need anything, just hit me up.”

Shiro’s smile fades as silence stretches between them, awkward in a way they usually manage to avoid. He clears his throat and nods his head toward the hippo cake still held in Keith’s palm. “You want me to box that up for the ride home?”

“That’d probably be smart.” Keith passes the cupcake back to Shiro, who fishes out a thin cardboard to-go box and gingerly places the hippo inside.

Once the precious cargo is secure, Shiro adds a few more cupcakes to fill out the box—it has room for four in total, and it seems a shame not to send Keith home with more to keep his custom hippo company. “Hope you don’t mind if I add a few extra?”

“No objection here,” Keith shrugs, “but I don’t want to take stuff you could be selling.”

Shiro laughs quietly as he folds the box into a neat close and fastens it with a piece of sweets-themed washi tape. “No need to worry. I always have more left at the end of the day than I know what to do with, so I’ve just been giving the leftovers out for free. Kind of hoping it'll help boost interest. I give them out at my apartment complex, at the VA medical center... I even tried leaving some out at the gym, but as I’m sure you can imagine, most of that crowd isn’t too interested.”

“So... how much for everything you’ve got back there right now?” Keith asks, a determined set to his slight frown.

Shiro blinks down at Keith, then at the various coolers and bins surrounding him in the back of the truck. “Everything?”

Keith shrugs, sending the strap of his loose tank on a precarious slide down his shoulder and baring a drool-worthy stretch of sun-tanned skin. “Yeah, sure. Give me all of it. You can pack it up and go home early, no leftovers.”

“It would be...” Shiro’s always been quick with mental math, but the gears in his head suddenly refuse to turn. Every brain cell in his possession is instead spinning on Keith, who’s offering to clear him out so he can pocket some cash and call it a day? Keith, handsome and gold-hearted, is saving him once again?

“Would three-hundred cover it?” Keith prods when it becomes apparent that Shiro’s brain has fizzled out, wallet already in hand.

“Yeah, and then some,” Shiro answers, tongue and mind both sluggish still. He’s fortunate to have managed a response at all, truthfully.

“Good.”

Shiro watches, wide-eyed, as Keith rifles his fingers through bills in his wallet—dozens of them, more than Shiro could break with all the ones and fives in his zippered money bag—and pulls out three-hundred dollars. He’s mostly stunned by Keith’s cool in it all, as if it’s entirely within the norm to buy dozens of cupcakes, brownies and other assorted pastries, spur-of-the-moment. And to overpay for them, no less.

“What are you going to do with all these?” Shiro asks, still carrying a note of awestruck surprise. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands—or where to even begin boxing up so many things at once—as he stares at Keith, wondering for an answer.

Keith flashes Shiro a quick smile. “I work with kids at an after-school program. They’ll swarm on this like locusts.”

“Yeah?” Shiro asks as he pulls tray after tray from the fridges and cases within the truck and arranges them on the narrow counter. “That’s incredible. You must be good with kids, huh?”

“They seem to tolerate me just fine,” Keith answers, bouncing in place on the balls of his feet. “You must be popular with them, too,” he adds as he folds his arms on the counter and leans into the window to watch Shiro work.

“Me? Well, yeah, kids love sweets,” Shiro agrees, thinking of the groups of children that sometimes swarm his truck looking for free samples, undeterred by its shabby exterior, “but I never really know what to say or do around them. In theory, sure. In practice, I’m a little awkward.”

Judging by the low, velvety laugh, Keith finds the thought of Shiro struggling to relate to today’s youth amusing. They make small talk while Shiro boxes up everything left in his truck—about the kids Keith volunteers with and Shiro’s job-juggling—and then Shiro helps carry half the boxes out to Keith’s car where it sits parked a block away.

It’s a sleek number sporting the same cherry-red paint as Keith’s bike, with accents trimmed in white, and it looks like it cost more than Shiro’s entire net worth. The interior is black leather and smells distinctly of Big Red. More than one crumpled McDonald’s bag sits in the backseat.

Shiro whistles low while carefully stabilizing the tower of sweet-filled boxes in the passenger seat. “Nice car.”

Keith’s smile is small, somehow shy even as it’s self-satisfied, as if he’d been hoping to impress without being obnoxious. “You should see it out on the track.”

Shiro’s less interested in imagining the car and more tempted to picture Keith driving it. Friendly as he is, and kind as he is, there’s an intensity behind Keith’s eyes that probably lends itself well to hair-trigger decisions and gutsy stunts. The imagery alone is enough to give Shiro sweaty palms and a sticky feeling at the back of his throat.

“I can imagine. Just don’t go tearing around any corners while you have these,” Shiro cautions as he tenderly buckles the pastry boxes into the seat, as one might a small child. “Or you’ll be cleaning icing out of the floorboards for days.”

Another day passes by slow, the hours crawling by as another long lull in customers sets in. Business has picked up in the last couple of weeks—double what it used to be, as word-of-mouth helps coax people into approaching the crusty-looking food truck with the promise of fun and expertly baked sweets—but the numbers still aren’t quite where Shiro or his bank account would like them to be. 

Keith’s visits help fill the gaps, though.

Sometimes, Shiro can tell he’s coming by the peculiar beat of his boots against the pavement, or his unique cadence across gravel. He knows the silky purr of the polished sports car’s engine. He can pick out the soothing timbre of Keith’s voice amid the sounds of a lively park or busy city street. There’s even a special chime set for Keith’s incoming texts alone, unique in its ability to make Shiro drop his work and check his phone.

And the odd days where Keith’s other obligations keep him from dropping by always run slower. Drier. It’s a little dark and disappointing without seeing him to look forward to, no matter how clear the skies or beautiful the weather. And then Shiro’s stuck with a dozen or two leftovers to pass off before they spoil or he resorts to eating them all himself.

This is a good day, though. Shiro can tell by the shadow that stretches across the sidewalk long before its owner shows, and the sure-footed step that comes paired with long legs and more leather than the heat and humidity should allow for.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite customer...”

Keith’s smile is enough to make Shiro’s hands go idle and his thoughts still. It’s as bright as the pink-tinge on his cheeks, despite how cool he remains in every other regard. “I bet you say that to all the guys who show up at the end of the day to buy you out.”

“Caught me.”

There’s something sultry about the way Keith laughs to himself, low and breathy and just right to Shiro’s ears. “So, what’ve you got for me today?”

Shiro runs through the remains as he boxes them up for Keith. They’d long ago forgone the typical cardboard boxes used for regular customers, instead investing in oversized tupperware helpfully labeled with Keith’s name—as if Shiro might ever forget who it belonged to—that streamlined the packing process.

“A few Hokkaido cupcakes, rocky road cookies, strawberry cupcakes, some taro swiss rolls—” Shiro glances up for a reaction, smiling as Keith makes the excited little gasp he’d been expecting, “and a few different kinds of buns. I’ll let those flavors be a fun surprise.”

“No banana?” Keith checks as he hands over a credit card and lets Shiro total it up.

“For you? Never.”

A considerable cash tip follows, although Keith long ago forsook the jar and now only hands his money directly to Shiro.

It’s too much. It always is. But it’s also what’s keeping Shiro’s start-up business scraping along and his head above water. Pride is nothing in the face of looming rent and a small mountain of medical debt, and Keith’s absolute warmth and genuine kindness help Shiro accept his gifts without it feeling too much like a handout.

“Business seems like it’s going well,” Keith comments.

“It’s picked up,” Shiro says, sporting a grin as he unties his apron and exits the truck to help Keith to his car. It’s only a couple of boxes, and there’s no doubt that Keith could manage it alone, but Shiro likes the chance to spend a minute longer with Keith as they linger by his Porsche.

“I have a feeling you have something to do with that,” Shiro chances, casting a glance at Keith as he pulls the door open and watches him load the boxes into the front seat.

Keith folds his hands atop the curved edge of the open door and rests his chin on his knuckles, a wry smile playing across his lips. “They’re a big hit wherever I take them. Not like I’m going to keep my mouth shut when people want to know who made the best damn sweets they’ve ever had.” His lips press together for a moment, smile thinning as he works his jaw. “I’ll miss having you to myself, though. Don’t forget about me when you’re a world-famous pastry chef and you’ve got your own show on Food Network.”

“So, you’ve got jokes, huh?”

“I’m dead serious, Shiro.”

“Oh.”

Usually, shooting the breeze beside Keith’s car devolves into Keith talking about whatever changes he’s made under the hood, tweaking the engine until its performance suits his liking. It’s stuff that Shiro doesn’t quite follow, despite having enough mechanical knowledge to handle basic engine maintenance and repairs, but Keith tries to make it listener-friendly. It’s nice, too, seeing him light up whenever Shiro asks a question about the work he’s put into it.

But this time, Keith doesn’t start in on auto talk to fill the silence. He idles with his legs crossed and his hip leaned against the chassis, thumb absently brushing over his own lip while he watches Shiro.

“You’re really good at what you do, Shiro,” Keith continues after a minute more of quiet consideration. “I know you’re gonna go places with it.”

It’s a sweet thought, and Shiro wishes he was half as convinced as Keith seems to be. “I’ve only done as well as I have thanks to a very generous friend. Practically a business partner, at this point.”

His hand is on Keith’s shoulder before he can think better of it, and the worry of potentially alienating his most dependable customer and one of his all-around favorite people sets in too late. They’ve come into contact before—casual brushes of the hand, playful elbows and shoves on the way to Keith’s car—but nothing this direct, nothing this assumptive, and Shiro inwardly reels because he can tell Keith is particular about who he’s touched by and how.

And to his moderate surprise, Keith doesn’t shy or wrest himself away. If anything, he rolls his shoulder into the pressure of Shiro’s hand, welcoming it.

“Business partner, huh?” Keith says, glancing up at Shiro from under his lashes.

“Financial backer, if nothing else,” Shiro hedges, relieved when Keith laughs along with him. When he draws his hand back, he misses the warmth under his palm; uncertainty returns in full-force, and Shiro has to know that he hasn’t overreached and spoiled the easy familiarity they’ve cultivated. “See you tomorrow? If that’s alright?”

Keith uncrosses his arms and gives Shiro’s bicep a little bump with a loosely curled fist, knuckles soft as they brush over scar-wrapped skin. “You bet.”

The ping from his phone is Keith. The next one is, too.

Where should i meet you today? 

If i come by around 5, would you want to hit a bar or something after?

Can’t today. Truck’s broke. :( 

Been stuck in front of Allura’s all morning trying to figure out what’s wrong. 

oh 

okay

In fairness, Shiro should’ve realized that wasn’t the end of it. Still, he’s caught off-guard when the familiar steps of heavy boots find him as he’s lodged halfway under his battered, rusty truck, flush with the trash-lined gutter and dirty asphalt.

“Hey, Shiro.”

“Keith!” Shiro narrowly misses smacking his head on the front bumper as he sits up. “Hey! Hey.”

“You should’ve told me earlier,” Keith chastises as he unclips the bag fastened around his torso and drops it onto the sidewalk. “I’d have ditched Regris hours ago.”

Shiro is acutely aware of how filthy he is as Keith offers a hand and helps pull him to his feet. His back is damp with whatever is dripping from the engine onto the pavement, and the white tank top hiked up around his torso is crisscrossed with streaks of oil and grease from futilely poking around the engine.

Aside from the sheer embarrassment of Keith seeing him in the worst state he’s been since their first meeting, all Shiro can think of is the nightmare that fixing the truck will entail—calling a mechanic out to look at it, or paying an arm and a leg to tow it to a shop that’ll no doubt require quadruple that fee to return his frankensteinian food truck to passable working order.

“Keith, I can’t ask you to—”

Keith’s hands find his shoulders, gentle even as they bodily shift Shiro two steps to the left and out of the way. “I’ll take care of it, okay?”

‘Taking care of it’ means calling someone qualified, in Shiro’s mind. In Keith’s, it means stripping off his jacket and prying up the hood to handle the problem himself.

Shiro watches, open-mouthed, as Keith pulls himself up to stand on the front bumper and studies the interior of the engine, the dark stain of old grease gradually working its way up Keith’s wrists as he spends the better part of an hour examining the inner workings of Shiro’s livelihood.

Shiro can only stare, halfway entranced by the calm focus that settles over Keith as he gets his hands on the mechanical guts. He sips water and stands out of the way while he waits for the professional verdict, all of his attempts to contribute promptly shooed off.

“Well,” Keith sighs as he finally leaps down from the front of the truck, heedless of the oil on his hands as he goes to smooth back his sweaty hair and smears it across his forehead in the process, “it would be quicker to tell you what isn’t wrong with it.”

“That bad, huh?” Shiro hands off his half-finished water bottle, and Keith accepts it with a grateful little sigh.

“I’m amazed this thing’s lasted this long, Shiro. I can’t even begin to figure out where to start fixing it, between how shitty it was to start with and how you’ve jerry-rigged it to hell and back.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no. I mean, I get it. It’s just—it’s not a good prognosis,” Keith says, his tone all consolation and sympathy, though tinged with disgust for the travesty happening under Shiro’s hood. “I’ll call my tow guy for you. If anyone can salvage this sad monstrosity, it’s my uncle.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it, Keith,” Shiro says, forcing a smile that doesn’t feel very convincing. Worry twists away in his gut as Keith struggles with the voice commands on his phone to place the right calls, his hands still a smudgy mess of oil and grease.

By the end of the call, Keith somehow has dark smudges across his nose and cheeks, too. Shiro can’t decide which of them looks like more of a mess now; despite his head start, Keith is nearly as grimy.

“You’ve got a little something right here,” Shiro says, tapping the side of his own nose as demonstration.

“Here?” Keith immediately touches a dirty finger to his nose, adding another smear of oil to the growing collage across his face.

“Wow. You got it.” He flashes Keith a little OK sign. “All clear.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I’m about to clean my hands off on you. ”

“Hey, easy,” Shiro laughs, arching back as Keith takes a lazy swipe at his middle. “Listen, I only live a few blocks away. Do you wanna come over and get cleaned up?”

It’s a resounding yes, and by the time they reach Shiro’s cramped apartment building, they’re both sporting more oil-stains than they started out with. Shiro has to wriggle out of Keith’s reach more than once while keying in his access code with one metal pinky, laughing as Keith looks to get even for the lopsided smiley face Shiro managed to smear across his cheek.

“Do you have any oil we can use?” Keith asks once they’re inside, his arms held aloft, suddenly vigilant about not spreading his mess another inch further. “Baby oil, emulsifying oil... Hell, I’d take sesame.”

“Uh, I’ve got some cleansing oil, but I’d rather not use this much of it. Kind of pricey per ounce. There should be a big tub of coconut oil in the bathroom already, though,” Shiro calls out while toeing off his sneakers by the front door.

Keith is already smoothing coconut oil up and down his arms by the time Shiro joins him in the bathroom, using it to loosen the tough automotive oil stuck to his skin. He makes a quick pass over his face afterward, furiously rubbing his fingers over the darkest spots along his nose and forehead, and then beckons Shiro close. “Come here and I’ll take care of your face.”

Obediently, Shiro leans down and in, eyes slipping shut while Keith scoops out another handful of the solidified coconut oil and smears it down his nose, over his cheeks, dots it along his forehead. He expects the same speedy, no nonsense treatment he’d seen Keith apply on himself, but the gentle circles worked across his cheeks and along his jaw are anything but. It’s slow and sensitive and almost stubbornly thorough, as if it’s Keith’s personal mission to remove every speck of grime from Shiro’s face.

Keith works the oil up Shiro’s arm and across his collar bone next, and then the stray spots along his nape and shoulders from where he’d been lying underneath the truck. With a rag, he carefully cleans the metal plating along Shiro’s prosthetic, a fine mechanic’s eye helping him get every joint and seam.

They both end up hunched over the small sink at the same time, bumping hands and heads as they use cheap, artificially lemon hand soap to clean away the grimey oil and the general smell of auto repair. It ends with two ruined towels for Shiro, but they’re at least ninety-percent oil-free at last.

Their clothes are another matter.

Shiro lends Keith one of his shirts to replace the tee stained all down its front from his examination of the engine—and Keith has no qualms about changing tops right there in the living room. He’s efficient, grabbing onto the back of his top as he pulls it over his head, ruffling his hair up like an unruly mane; the new shirt goes on just as quickly, leaving a narrow window for Shiro to glimpse the wiry, slender body underneath.

It’s a little baggy on Keith, despite being one of the smallest and tightest shirts Shiro owns—something he picked up when he last visited the air and space museum, back when he had yet to do basic training and was two sizes smaller. The faded NASA print suits Keith well, he decides.

Shiro swaps his own dirty tank top for a softspun shirt that sits light on freshly scrubbed skin and throws on a worn pair of joggers, too.

His fridge holds a variety of beer, protein shakes and fresh juice, and not much else. There’s some old takeout and a few pudding cups, along with a hefty block of cheese he’s been taking a bite out of each day for breakfast. Shiro hides the telltale cheese in the crisper drawer before fishing out two bottles of his most decent beer, mortified at the thought of Keith seeing how he lives.

“Want one?” he asks, offering him a beer. “Or something else?”

He waits until Keith’s hand is wrapped around the bottle before carefully uncurling the aluminum fingers crooked around its neck. It’s only a split-second later that he realizes he handed it to him unopened. “Oh, shit, let me get that.”

The edge of the metal cap catches just right along the textured surface of his prosthetic thumb, and it only takes a quick flex of his finger to pop it free.

“Nice,” Keith grins, catching the loose top in his palm before it can fall to the floor. “I mean, I can open a bottle with my bare hands, too, but that was smooth as hell.”

“Thanks. I’m really trying.” Shiro only means to take a sip to start, but he ends up swigging down a third of his bottle on the first go. “It’s an improvement on lying in the gutter, right?”

Keith shrugs. “You almost looked like you knew what you were doing down there,” he says, a sly smile working its way across his lips. He cuts it off by taking another drink, eyes wandering around the sparsely furnished kitchen.

“Hungry?” Shiro asks. He hopes not, because there isn’t a lot to offer that isn’t three day old cheese and peanut butter.

Keith straightens up and rolls his neck from side to side before answering. There’s a little furrow between his brows, like he’s thinking on it. “Yeah. It’s like a Pavlovian response, I think?” he says slowly, his head cocked to one side. “I see you and I get a real strong craving for something sweet.”

Shiro acknowledges that with a little rumble in the back of his throat. “Mm. That’s my fault, I guess.”

Keith continues to nod, solemn as he finishes off his beer. “Yup. I didn’t even have much of a sweet-tooth before you came along, with your fluffy cheesecakes and your oreo-core cupcakes...”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Shiro mutters, thinking of Keith’s record for taking down a cupcake (two bites) and some of his sugar-shock custom requests (like triple-stacked buttercream frosting cookie sandwiches). In the back of his pantry, he finds a near-empty jar of hazelnut spread to tide Keith over as they lounge against the countertops of his cramped kitchen area.

Keith grabs a second beer to sip in between spoonfuls of nutella, and they spend a few minutes debating the best uses of the creamy, chocolatey spread. Keith argues in favor of it as a dip for potato chips, and Shiro’s onboard until barbecue flavor gets thrown into the mix.

“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?” Shiro asks after a soft lull sets in. They’re standing in his apartment day-drinking after Keith ostensibly dropped whatever he was doing to come help with the truck, and he can’t help but feel like someone in Keith’s position must have better things to do. “Not that I don’t appreciate the company.”

“I can set my own hours,” Keith says simply.

Volunteers with kids, sets his own hours, and blows at least a grand a month on a crappy bakery truck.

Shiro prods the inside of his cheek with his tongue for a few long seconds. “I don’t want to be rude or pry or anything, but what is it you do, exactly?”

Keith launches into an explanation like he’s been waiting on that question for a while. “I used to work in my uncle’s auto shop full-time, and for fun I’d mess around and rebuild engines, design new ones, whatever. While I was working on one for a bike, I made some new components that were pretty nifty, so I patented them, then sold the patents to Sincline Energy,” he takes a quick sip of his beer, “and now I do whatever I want.”

And Shiro is briefly, excitedly dumbfounded. “That’s amazing, Keith. Sincline? As in, the one that’s always in the news?”

“Same one. They’re using some of my projects in those new hoverbikes they’re developing. The CEO’s son brought me on for some consulting work, too, so I got to take one of the prototype models out for a joyride. It was like flying,” he grins at Shiro, bright and high from the memory, “but one little jump and like, ten different techs were screaming in my headset about it, so... anyway, that’s how I suddenly got rich. I’m surprised it took you so long to ask.”

Shiro drinks to give himself an extra moment to absorb and assimilate this new Keith-knowledge. More and more, it seems unfathomably unlikely that someone so remarkable would’ve stumbled across him—would’ve given his old truck and chocolate lions a second glance, would’ve seen something in him worth chasing. Yet here he is, standing in Shiro’s kitchen and drinking his cheap beer and not looking the least bit disappointed about it.

“Well, you never asked about this, either,” Shiro says, tapping the scar across his nose with a prosthetic finger. “So I didn't want to be the one to pry, but... but it’s been a few months, and I never stopped being curious about you.”

“Same here.”

The corner of Shiro’s mouth curls at the thought of Keith’s interest. Of him being as curious about Shiro as Shiro was about him. “So, what do you do with your free time? Since you can do whatever you want.”

“Well, I started an after-school thing for kids in tight spots,” Keith starts, one hand going to rub at the back of his neck. “The one I told you about. So I spend a lot of time working with them and the school board and the local courts. Outside of that, I help out in my family’s auto shop sometimes, or drive out to the woods for a few days to go camping. Oh, and I chase a guy in a shoddy food truck who makes the best sweets in this and every other universe.”

It’s enough to send a flare of heat across Shiro’s cheeks, down his chest, sinking in deep to settle in the mess of his guts. He crosses his arms and lifts his chin a hair, humming as he fixes Keith with a quick squint. “And how do you know that?”

“A gut feeling,” Keith answers simply. He laughs to himself as he nudges Shiro aside from the sink to wash the spoon he’d used. “As in, I get it in my gut after I eat your chiffon cakes and honey-cream caterpillars. They’re life-changing.”

“Really?” Keith’s always so quick to build him up, and it still takes Shiro by surprise. “And hey, let me get that. You’re the guest.”

“No way,” Keith says, deftly dodging Shiro’s attempts to take the spoon and dish sponge from his hands. “I can clean up after myself. Move,” he warns, bumping Shiro aside with his hip until he’s certain there won’t be anymore interference. With a little look over his shoulder, he asks, “So, what’d you do before the bakery truck?”

Shiro grabs a dish towel for Keith to dry his hands and is thoroughly pleased to see him smile at the cutesy frog print. He’d bought a whole set like it the last time he visited his grandfather.

“Air Force. Didn’t really pan out,” he says under his breath, a low laugh following. He shifts his weight at the same time Keith does, or something like that, and they end up brushing close. “It’s how all this happened,” he explains as he rotates his arm for Keith to get a good look at the carbon-fiber base and aluminum plating. “Accident during a training exercise.”

Keith’s brows scrunch together and his mouth twists into a frown. It’s soft and empathetic rather than pitying, and Shiro appreciates that. “How long ago?”

“Three years. I was in the hospital for a good bit of it, so I had some time to think about what else I’d want to do, going forward. Baking always made me happy. Calms me down when I’m stressing—that and working out. And as a bonus, I get to make other people happy, too.”

Keith’s eyes aren’t on him, but he nods along to the words. When he speaks, it’s so quiet that he leans in so Shiro can hear. “I’m glad you found something you love to do, Shiro. Just wish things had been easier on you.”

“Me, too,” he says, chuckling after. When he notices Keith still eyeing his arm, he adds, “You can touch it, if you like.”

“You sure?”

If it were anyone else but Allura or Matt—and now Keith, officially on the short list of people he trusts—he’d say no. “Go for it. It was semi-experimental at the time, so it’s still pretty cutting edge. I have to calibrate it daily, but it was considered a big leap forward in terms of fine motor control, so...”

“It looks good,” Keith says, his touch light as he appraises the construction of Shiro’s arm.

It’s not as though Shiro has nerve endings anymore, but the prosthetic does a decent job of registering touch and sensation through a refined system of pressure plates lined across its surface. And Keith’s touch is... nice, even through sleek aluminum and textured carbon-fiber polymer. The slow stroke along his synthetic forearm is still enough to trigger a shiver up and down Shiro’s spine, rattling nerves all the way up to his cortex; the way Keith’s fingertip traces the fine articulation of his fingers feels intimate.

Shiro can’t do anything about the low half-moan that hangs in his throat when Keith skirts his blunt nails along the rather delicate cords of his wrist.

“Sorry, sorry,” Shiro mumbles, quick to apologize. “No one’s really touched it since I finished physical therapy. I, uh, forgot that it can feel good.”

“I was wondering how well it transmits sensation,” Keith mutters, thumbing across a gleaming section of aluminum plating. He makes to pull away, but seems to think better of it; his fingertips linger on the back of Shiro’s hand. “Sorry if I overstepped.”

“You didn’t. Promise.” He watches as Keith slowly brings their hands together, palm-to-palm, his slender fingers lined up against the longer and thicker prosthetic digits. If Shiro were to curl his hand around Keith’s, he’d swallow it up, calluses and bruised-knuckles and all.

When Keith draws his hand back an inch, Shiro misses the pressure of it. The solid reassurance. The simple human contact, which is something he hasn’t been open to for some time. He might be touch-starved, because the bone-melting tingle that settles along his skin as Keith drags his nail across the textured polymer and aluminum of his palm is more intense than it has any right to be.

“What’s the temperature sensitivity like?” Keith traces where a crease should run—heartline or lifeline, Shiro can’t remember.

“Zero. I never need an oven mitt,” he adds with a wink. “As a baker, that’s a pro. Negative is that getting any kind of crushed candy or powder out of the joints is a nightmare.”

Shiro is uncertain which is more to blame for the thrumming in his veins and the flutter in his chest—the way Keith takes hold of his hand like he doesn’t want to let go, or the way he laughs while he does it.

Shiro is pulling an extra shift at Coran’s gym when Keith calls and tells him to come by Kolivan’s mechanic shop as soon as he can. It’s a headache to find someone else to cover the front desk, and the twenty minutes it takes to bike to the shop are more than enough time for his brain to scour itself for worst-case scenarios.

He’s sticky with sweat by the time he pulls into the corner lot packed with parked cars, but it’s more from nerves than the trip across town. With no idea where to leave his bike, Shiro carries it inside and props it against a wall by the desk manned by a tall, handsome man with a neatly trimmed goatee. The front desk attendant is busy helping someone else, so an anxious Shiro sidles past in search of someone familiar.

The garage is crawling with imposing men and women twice his size. Shiro knows they’re all part of the network of extended family and friends that Keith was largely raised by after his father passed away, which makes everything both a little more reassuring and a little more nerve-wracking. Through the general miasma of worry and financial doom, Shiro still manages to wonder where Keith inherited his smaller stature from.

Keith finds him first, his expression grim and his march determined, and Shiro prepares for the worst.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Keith greets. As soon as they’re within arms’ reach, his hands settle on Shiro’s biceps to help brace him, as if the gory details might send him fainting.

Shiro relaxes a degree under the touch, wishing it could be more. Ideally, he’d like to be cocooned in Keith’s hold when the final total is read. “Let’s hear the bad first.”

“It’s gone, Shiro.”

“Gone?” That’s a swerve he didn’t expect. “Like, stolen? Or—”

“Kolivan said it was beyond saving. Or not fiscally feasible to save,” Keith says, correcting himself. “You’re better off getting a new truck. One without a criminal record.”

Judging by the way Keith rubs up and down along his arms, it’s a comment meant to lighten the mood, in the same way his contact means to soothe. And it isn’t Keith’s fault that neither quite gels, because the knotted mess of anxiety nestled in Shiro’s gut is frankly indomitable.

“I could barely afford that one,” Shiro growls out, eyes shut as he squeezes the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb, trying to quell the lightning-flash tension of a stress-induced migraine coming on. There’s a burn at the corners of his eyes, frustration manifesting in the pinprick sting of tears. “I haven’t even paid off the loan for it. Fuck. How much? How much to fix it anyway?”

Keith sighs. “Shiro—”

“How much, Keith?”

“Way more than it’s worth as scrap. We’re talking well upward of ten-thousand just to get it running, and even then, it’s still a piece of shit.” Keith stands closer now, uncertain even as he lets his hands lay across Shiro’s shoulders, smoothing back and forth over rigid, tensed muscle. “It’s not worth the investment.”

The words break heavy over Shiro, and his first instinct is to argue it more, despite knowing the truth in what Keith’s telling him. “Can I sit?”

“Yeah, c’mere,” he hurries to say, ushering Shiro to a long, metal bench in a relatively quiet corner of the garage. Keith stands guard over him, practically stradling Shiro’s knees, like a bulwark against anything else that might come as a blow to him. “It’s going to be alright, Shiro.”

“No,” Shiro says, a shaky exhale chasing the word. He tips his head back until his skull meets the painted cinder block wall, and when he swallows he can feel it stick halfway down the column of his throat. “I don’t see how it can be. Every day that I don’t have a truck to sell from, I’m losing money. I can’t afford not to have one, and I’ve already sunk so much into the commissary fees and insurance and permits and—well, shit. Fuck me. Fuck.”

Keith rubs soothing circles along the juncture of his arm, up the slope of his shoulder, and Shiro leans into the welcome touch. He wants to bury his face against Keith’s front, or into the crook of his neck; he wants those arms slung around him and that voice in his ear, telling him things will be okay even as his life spirals out of his control for the second or third time. Instead, he hides behind his hands and hopes that earth will cut him loose and eject him into space, where his debt and credit score cannot follow.

“You didn’t let me tell you the good news yet,” Keith whispers, leaned in so close that his breath warms Shiro’s skin.

Shiro moves one of his hands just enough to look up at Keith, peeking between a tangle of fingers. He laughs, low and hollow and disbelieving. He’s worn through, and almost too tired to engage Keith in whatever pick-me-up he’s trying to put on. “How can there be good news?”

“Trust me.” Keith is gentle as he pries Shiro’s hands from his face and works their fingers into a loose lacing. He tugs at Shiro until he’s back on his feet, too, then leads him down a wide hallway to a smaller adjoining garage.

It’s dim and quiet, other than a massive box fan that’s running to circulate air throughout the room. Machinery and towering tool cases line the walls, but there’s no one else in here—just the two of them, plus a behemoth food service truck that looks fresh off the sale lot.

It’s painted glossy black all over and detailed in gleaming chrome, with nary an airbrushed clown to be seen. There are clean mudflaps and a built-in awning over the service window, and the hubcaps are so polished that Shiro can see the reflection of his legs from the knee down. The AC unit on top is sleek and new, more than capable of warding off the sultriest summer days. Every inch of it looks brand new—and the sticker still sitting in the window and missing tag testify to that. No balding tires, no rusted patches hastily covered with spray paint, and both side mirrors are intact.

It’s a thing of beauty.

Shiro recognizes the make and model from hours of wishful research. It hardly gets more top-of-the-line, and this truck—plus all of the high-end appliances inside—must market for four or five times what he paid for his repossessed hunk of junk. Close to a hundred grand, or maybe more, depending on what extra options Keith sprang for.

“Wow. Whose is this?” Without thinking, Shiro runs his hand along the side, marveling at the feel of cool, sleek metal that isn’t coated with flaking paint. His fingers come away clean of rust and other colored flecks.

“Mine for now,” Keith says, unfazed as Shiro whips his head around to stare at him. “But it could be yours, if you like it.”

Shiro can’t form the words for what he feels, all of it too sudden and intense for him to do anything but grapple with: the emptiness in his lungs, as if he’s been sucked into the vacuum of space; the dreamy disbelief that buzzes under his skin and leaves his head fuzzy; the naked shock and wonder that leave his tongue paralyzed for a lengthy stretch of time.

“This? Mine? Keith.”

Keith’s always been a little much, a little extra, but this leaves Shiro’s legs weak. He leans heavily against the truck for support—the truck worth well more than twice what he makes in a year, holy shit—and hopes to the heavens that he doesn’t actually collapse. Keith’s seen him lying on the ground in pooled grease enough for one week.

Without a word, Keith is there at his side, quicker than Shiro can even register. He stabilizes Shiro by pinning him bodily against the side of the truck, a knee angled between his legs to keep him from sliding down any further.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, hands wrapped around the joints of Shiro’s elbows to help keep him upright. “Can you breathe? You can breathe, right?”

“Yeah,” Shiro sighs out, regaining a little of his composure but absolutely none of his dignity. He can’t quite straighten up with Keith so close, wedged between his legs and flush against his front while the cool steel siding of the truck presses firm against his shoulder blades. He’s also acutely aware of the thigh pressed against his groin, but that sensation plays second fiddle to his borderline hyperventilation.

“Are you okay now?”

Shiro realizes his hands are wrapped around Keith’s waist, curled into the fabric of his loose red tank. He isn’t sure when they got there, either.

“Fine,” he says, swallowing under the intensity of Keith’s concerned stare. “Just recovering from the emotional whiplashing of a lifetime.”

“Little bit dramatic,” Keith mumbles as he slowly eases off of Shiro, leaving a whole six-inches of space between them.

Shiro blows right in his face, sending the hair hanging across Keith’s nose flying for a moment. “Dramatic? Dramatic? ” He raps his aluminum knuckles against the sleek surface behind him, the sound reverberating through high-quality steel siding. “And what do you call this? Keith, you can’t just... ”

“Give you exactly what you need?” If Keith could dig his heels into the solid poured concrete under their feet, he absolutely would. He’s a wall before Shiro, almost angry-looking as he leans in and waits for a challenge.

Shiro rubs at his eyes with his left hand and takes a deep breath. It’s difficult to think straight, and not only because Keith is looming less than a foot in front of him. “You don’t just give people stuff like this,” he murmurs. “I can’t take it from you, Keith.”

“Why not?” Keith’s fierce when his jaw is set and his chin is lowered, like he’s ready to make a charge. He stares up at Shiro with a look that borders on the flesh-melting glare he once gave to a customer who dared to complain about Shiro’s cheesecake. “And you wouldn’t be taking it if I’m giving it to you.”

“What kind of friend would I be?” Shiro asks, refusing to wilt under the intensity of Keith’s full and determined focus. He’s too kind by half, all heart packed within a frame that can scarcely contain it. “Leeching off of you like this? You’ve already given me so much already—”

“Because I wanted to,” Keith interrupts, his tone turning pleading. His slender hands press against Shiro’s front, palms sweaty-warm through the fabric of the faded henley stretched across his chest. “Because we’re friends. Because I want you to be happy, and I like being the one responsible for it.”

“It’d be selfish,” Shiro protests, “and I’m already selfish enough when it comes to you.”

Keith groans and collapses inward, his forehead thumping into Shiro’s chest and his face squished between his pecs. “I’m the selfish one,” comes out muffled against Shiro’s front. “It’s as much for me as it is for you.”

It’s too tempting. It feels too right. Shiro wraps his arms loose around Keith, holding him fast, hands laced together at the small of the man’s back. When he sighs, it sends the little unruly tuft at the crown of Keith’s head wavering.

“You’re the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met. The furthest thing from selfish I’ve ever known.” In his arms, Keith is solid reassurance—a grounding weight to keep the worst of Shiro’s worries at bay, and his trust is worth more than anything money could ever buy. “And I don’t want to take advantage of that.”

“You aren’t. Money’s there to be spent,” Keith says, turning his head so that he can speak freely, his cheek pressed to the swell of Shiro’s muscle. “And I like spending it on you.”

Shiro blinks slow. He isn’t sure which of them started rocking, but they’re looped in a gentle and soothing sway, still wrapped tight around each other. And Keith is warm —hot-blooded and a little damp along his back, his skin still flushed with red—against Shiro in ways and places that prove distracting. It gives him the same feeling of sticky, drowsy comfort as a late summer morning spent lingering under a heavy comforter, safe and insulated.

And it’s hard for Shiro to think of anything but how good it feels to have Keith so close, much less muster an argument that might push him away.

“Why?”

Keith shrugs his shoulders, and the moment of friction between them feels like the crackle that preludes a jump of electricity. “You deserve to have your dreams come true, and I want to help. Indirectly, or whatever, but... still in your orbit. It’s the least I can do.”

The least he can do is bankroll Shiro’s dreams? It’s still too much to bear, a show of kindness that’s enough to take Shiro apart; holding onto Keith is all that’s keeping him from spilling apart across the garage floor. “Keith, I have no idea what to say.”

As if in deep contemplation, Keith hums. “Try, ‘Wow, Keith, thanks for the cool truck that didn’t used to be a meth kitchen. I graciously accept. Will you give me a tour?’”

“Thank you,” Shiro says, and all the gratitude he pours into it isn’t enough. They untangle slow and reluctant, settling for clinginess and hip-to-hip closeness in lieu of a full embrace. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Damn, look at that bumper. It’s not even held on with zip-ties.” He smooths his hand over the chrome, admiring the glint, and smiles at Keith. “Care to show me around?”

“Love to,” Keith says, color blooming bright across his cheeks and up to his ears. He starts with the engine—of course, because it’s Keith —and rattles off specs and model numbers that Shiro doesn’t know quite what to do with, other than smile and nod. The tires are heavy-duty with nary a patch-job to be seen, and the gas mileage printed in the window promises higher efficiency than the old one could manage on the best of days—not that it’s a high bar to beat.

And then Keith pulls open the driver’s side door for Shiro and gestures for him to try out the seat.

“Ah, wow.” It’s plush and comfortable, and there’s even lumbar support. No metal poking through the cushion to jab him between the ribs, no faint smell of ammonia, no broken AC vents or cracks in the windshield. “This is more comfortable than any chair I own. Hell, it might be better than my mattress.”

“Mhm,” Keith affirms, nodding. He steps up onto the sideboard to point out a few features Shiro’s unaccustomed to, like the heated seat, fuel conservation mode, the built-in GPS and backup camera. And then he taps along the door. “And check this out.”

“Power windows,” Shiro whispers, joyful at the sight of that single button and the conspicuous lack of a stubborn hand-crank.

“And power locks,” Keith whispers back, looking entirely too smug as Shiro coos over basic functionality. “Why don’t we take a look in the back, too?”

It’s bigger than the kitchen in Shiro’s apartment and better furnished, too. Not only is the floor scorch-free and polished underneath the ergonomic rubber safety mats, all of the appliances are top-notch. Pristine counters, temperature-controlled storage, a new stand-mixer and a neat little chalkboard for the menu—everywhere Shiro looks, there’s another little hint of how much thought Keith put into it.

“It’s more than I could’ve dreamed of, Keith. You have no idea how grateful—I mean, I don’t know what I’d do without you, and—I owe you more than I can ever repay.” Shiro licks his lips as they meander to the truck’s cab, where Keith elbows him and points out the fuzzy hippo plush sitting on the passenger side dash. “But I’ll try.”

Keith is quick to shake his head back and forth, resolute. “Don’t bother. I won’t take a cent from you.”

“Then I’ll do it some other way,” Shiro says, shrugging as he strokes along the truck’s hood. He allows himself a little excitement, despite some lingering doubts. He can imagine rolling up to block parties in this, with his logo painted on the side and some string lights for ambience. He can picture it perfectly, and it’s infinitely better with Keith in the shot, too. “Anything you want.”

There’s a weighty beat before Keith responds, his breathing a little hitched. “Anything?”

“Anything,” Shiro repeats as he saunters back toward Keith. He didn’t expect Keith to take the bait—small miracles—and he’s not going to let it slip by without snagging an idea of how to show his appreciation. “Free cupcakes for life. Donuts on the daily. Whatever weird flavor combos you want to try. All the frosting hippos you could ever eat. I can come over and cook you breakfast. Or dinner. Or swing you a discounted gym membership?”

Keith smiles unevenly, lips sealed tight, slow to meet Shiro’s eyes.

His poker face is abysmal.

“Please talk to me, Keith,” Shiro pleads, head dipping low to chase after Keith’s drifting stare. “If there’s something you really want, tell me before I default to an army of hippo pastries. I mean, I’m going to do that anyway, because it sounds amazing now that I've said it out loud, but I still want to know what’s actually on your mind.”

Keith gnaws at his lip first, some internal debate raging inside of him, gaze resting some twenty feet behind Shiro. When he finally opens his mouth it’s halting and uncertain, and he spends a long moment scanning Shiro’s face for something indeterminate.

“Well. Not to go full sugar daddy or anything,” Keith drawls slow, each word careful, his face growing redder by the second, “but...”

“Oh.” Oh. It’s a surprise, kind of, but a pleasant one. Flattering, too, when Shiro is pretty sure Keith could win over anyone he wanted with just a look, a touch, a minute of conversation. “Is that what we’re doing?”

Keith’s face falls quicker than a ruined souffle. “No—I mean, only if you wanted,” he stammers out. “And I was just thinking a date, I swear—”

“A date would be nice,” Shiro interrupts, wanting to halt Keith’s surging panic. “To start with, at least.”

Keith’s relief is palpable. Every line of his body loosens, tension evaporating from the taut muscle housed under his red tank and loose sweatpants.

Shiro runs his tongue along the backs of his teeth for a second, working up courage by the passing second. Keith’s really into him. Really. He wants more than just overlapping afternoons and the occasional drink at a bar, and he’s shy in even asking for that much. It’s almost sweeter than Shiro can stand, seeing Keith so lit up over something he could’ve had all along.

Shiro hums to himself. It’s a red-letter day, after all, and he might as well go for broke. “Making out would be pretty nice, too,” he suggests, gaze darting across the empty garage to check the doorway they’d entered by. Carrying voices and the whirs of auto repair keep him on edge, but no one ventures in. “And a little more... immediately gratifying.”

Keith’s eyes—dark and smokey and deeply violet—fix on Shiro’s, something as kinetic as a roiling storm resting just behind them. He’s silent, and briefly unreadable, aside from the blink-and-miss-it flex through his throat.

And then he’s on Shiro in a heartbeat, momentum carrying the both of them backward until Shiro’s shoulders slam into the truck’s unyielding steel, almost hard enough to bruise. Keith’s smaller frame belies a strength that suddenly has Shiro curious about him as a sparring partner—he’s quick, forceful, formed of lightning instinct and a keen sense of how to twist his body and where to apply pressure and—

Oh, Shiro likes it. Likes the solid heat against him, the jut of hip angled against his front, the insistent hands that can’t decide where they want to be. Likes Keith with his reservations thrown by the wayside, overeager and sloppy, all desperation to get his lips on Shiro’s and their bodies as flush as the physical constraints of this reality will allow. It’s a mood Shiro can get behind.

There’s a harried roughness to the way Keith moves against him, like he’s afraid the chance won’t come around again, and it carries into the way he kisses, too. Raised up onto his toes, no doubt, his hands fisted in the fabric along Shiro’s shoulder-seams to draw him down and in, not a single moment of hesitation once he’s committed to the act. And it’s bliss where they meet—sealed against lips silky from Keith’s honeyed chapstick, noses brushing close, and Keith’s hair tickling along his forehead.

The satisfaction is short-lived, however sweet it is. Like a single lick of chocolate after staring at a three-tiered ganache cake for hours on end, it does nothing to quell the craving that’s been building in them for more weeks than Shiro cares to count. Shiro is the first to move his mouth and work their angles, but Keith’s the one who introduces tongue and teeth to the mix; from there it’s an adrenaline-heavy haze of love bites and licks and a back-and-forth that neither of them is willing to lessen.

Until Keith’s fingertips dip along the edge of Shiro’s waistband, begging permission that Shiro would be keen to give if they weren’t just one room removed from Keith’s extended family, any one of whom could probably lift Shiro overhead and dunk him into a dumpster.

“Easy, soldier,” Shiro gasps as he arches his back, pressing up against Keith; it helps stop the metal from digging into his shoulder blades, sure, and serves the ill-advised dual-purpose of inciting friction from sternum to hip. “Let’s keep it above the belt for now.”

“Sorry,” is the reply, coupled with an apologetic kiss pressed to Shiro’s reddened, hickey-marked throat. Keith’s hands smooth upward, over the dips and curves of Shiro’s abdomen and chest, until he can idly tease at his nipples through the light fabric of the henley.

“You’re fucking strong,” Shiro remarks before he can forget about it, lost again in the vision of Keith mussed and keyed up, the temptation of his hands at work. He strokes up Keith’s side to the joint of his arm, around to the bare, sinewy bicep that flexes under his fingertips. “You must be good at hand-to-hand.”

“I am, thanks,” Keith says, words shaky through the breath he hasn’t quite caught. “Sorry about—I kind of slammed you, didn’t I? I don't usually—I was excited—”

“You’re fine,” Shiro smiles, knowing it must be crooked and flushed dark from Keith’s enthusiastic nipping. “I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

“Oh,” Keith quietly moans as he slips his arms up around Shiro’s neck and leans in, all of his weight resting against the bigger man’s front. His exhale burns hot across Shiro’s collarbone. “That’s good.”

Shiro buries his nose in Keith’s messy locks, a lower-pitched hum settling deep in his throat as he takes in the smell of juniper and fresh sweat. “Makes me want to take you to the mat. I bet you’d give me a good run for my money.”

“Nah. I’d straight up waste you,” Keith responds, as if it’s a simple fact—which it might be, if he honed his hand-to-hand skills against the well-built relations they passed on their way in here.

Shiro’s still laughing as he lays his lips on Keith’s once more, already missing the heat of his mouth. His arms are wrapped tight around Keith’s slim waist, and he gives a little squeeze just because he can. “That’d still be fun.”

Keith’s eyes flutter shut as Shiro’s words carry across his skin, so close that his lips catch against the slope of Keith’s cheek. A smile works its way over his mouth, curving in delight as Shiro’s hand runs down along the dip of his lower back, before it soon after fades into something borderline somber.

He stretches up close to Shiro’s ear. “I don’t want you to think this is an obligation,” he murmurs against his skin, some uncertainty creeping back, “or that anything I might give you is contingent on you doing things you don’t want. You don’t owe me shit.”

Shiro plants his hands on Keith’s hips and guides him back down, eases him just far enough back that he can look him square in the eye. Cupping his hands around Keith’s face, thumbs stroking light over the peaks of his cheekbones, he dips far enough down that their noses nearly meet.

“I’d want to do this with you regardless.” No room for Keith to harbor doubts, he hopes, if he’s plain and clear up front. He darts to press a quick, chaste kiss to Keith’s temple for good measure. “Listen, you could’ve asked me out, day one. You know? I’d have said yes. I was a disgusting goddamn mess, but I’d have said yes.”

“A mess?” Keith snort-laughs and gives him a playful shove, hand splayed out over the heaving muscle across Shiro’s chest. “A mess? Shiro, do you have any idea how you looked to the average passerby?”

“Like a dying man? A half-melted creamsicle? A human puddle?” His helpful brain switches tracks on the fly. “Hey, did you ever watch that show with the girl who could turn into goo or whatever?”

Keith ignores the derail like a champ. “You were a walking, talking wet-dream. Tall, handsome, hair slicked back, all sweaty, perfect jawline. Super nice and approachable, but jacked as fuck, too. Shiro, I could count your individual abs through your see-through shirt. And I did. ”

“Really?” It’s a genuine, delightful surprise. Better than being remembered as the poor soul melting in a rusty tin can. “Well, you played it cool, cause I had no idea you—wait. Did you only come to my truck because you thought I was hot? Not for the pastries?”

“Well, like ninety-percent of the population, I was taught to never approach strange, sketchy vehicles offering me sweets,” Keith teases, his little sliver of a smile wry as he pokes his way down Shiro’s sculpted torso. “Be glad I made an irresponsibly thirsty exception for the guy who looked like he’d just won a wet t-shirt contest.”

“Aw.” Wonderful as Keith has always been for hyping up Shiro’s baking, he’s even better for a personal ego-boost. “You really think I’d win?”

Keith’s gaze dips down for a half-second, apparently making a visual confirmation. Then he nods to himself, jaw setting stiffly. “Absolutely. I’d put big money on it.”

A low and impatient grunt from a few yards away turns Shiro’s blood to shaved-ice slush and stops his heart beating. Two men—and they’re some of the largest, broadest individuals Shiro has ever seen, and that’s including the professional weight-lifters that frequent the gym—are watching with the hard, hawk-eyed discernment of family sussing out the worth of a suitor.

Ah. And Shiro’s hands are currently settled on Keith’s hips, dangerously close to ass territory, while Keith stands frozen in the middle of cupping Shiro’s left pec.

All panic-driven instinct, Shiro attempts to jump back and put some distance between himself and Keith, forgetting that he’s already more or less pinned against the new food truck. All it gets him is a swift bang across the back of his skull and probably a bruise across his shoulders.

“Keith,” the shorter of the pair—still at least six-four—addresses, stone-faced and chill-toned. His greyed hair is neatly braided, its long coil draped over his shoulder with care. “And you must be the Shiro we’ve heard so much about.”

“Good things, I hope,” Shiro says as he bites the bullet and takes a few steps toward the intimidating duo, with Keith clinging to his side all the while.

There’s a little twitch along the man’s eyebrow in response, but he takes Shiro’s offered hand in a firm but warm-spirited shake. “You may call me Kolivan, and this is Antok. We merely wanted to return this to you,” he informs, gesturing to the even larger man hovering at his shoulder, all silence and piercing gaze.

Antok remains unreadable for a moment—the industrial paint respirator-mask covering more than half his face plays a part in that—before he turns around the square of cheap plywood in his hands and presents it to Shiro. It’s a small corkboard from a hobby store, bare but for two poorly lit photos and angry frowny faces drawn around its border in black sharpie.

Shiro brightens. “My banned customer board!”

Kolivan nods as Shiro gratefully takes the board from Antok and clutches it to his chest. “It was still in your... vehicle,” he says, heavy-hearted as he’s forced to recall Shiro’s piece-of-shit truck. He folds his hands behind his back and adopts a stance that reminds Shiro of old military command. “Regris suggested it might still have some value to you, so we salvaged it.”

“It does,” Shiro sighs, pleased to be reunited with the tiny photo collection. “I thought I’d just misplaced it when I was clearing out my stuff, but... wow, thank you. And not only for this, but for everything you’ve done. It won’t come close to making up for the trouble you’ve gone through, but I’d love to bring by some cupcakes and other treats to thank you and your team.”

“You are welcome.” The corner of Kolivan’s mouth moves, and it might be the first hint of positive emotion Shiro’s seen from him yet. “And I am certain that the crew would appreciate the gesture. Your hippo was very popular.”

Shiro is left to process that unexpected feedback as Kolivan turns to Keith and exchanges words in another tongue, low and soft with affection. In the meantime, Shiro presses his lips together and tries to focus on anything but the fact that Antok is silently staring him down, seemingly without blinking.

Kolivan settles his brief conversation with Keith with a quick hug and acknowledges Shiro with a little nod before he turns to leave. “Take care, Shiro.”

“Be safe,” Antok rumbles through his paint mask, the words a little distorted as they pass through the respirator. He steps forward and closes a giant hand around the top of Keith’s head, ruffling his hair in one efficient motion before stalking off after Kolivan, his broad shoulders turning as he passes through a doorway meant for non-giants.

“Holy shit,” Shiro mutters as he watches them go. He’d love to see a family photo, with Keith front and center amid the relatives that seem to have soaked up all the genes for being enormous.

Keith’s still hung up on the board clutched in Shiro’s hands. He sidles close and cranes his neck to get a look. “You banned people? You. Banned people?”

“Just two, so far. Not like I can do anything but refuse to serve them,” Shiro shrugs. He turns the board around so Keith can observe as he points at each of the pinned pictures in turn. “Drunk dude who started pissing on one of my tires, then sprayed the side when I yelled at him to stop. And the lady who spat at me when I told her I didn’t have any bagels.”

“Assholes. Fucking unbelievable.” Keith crosses his arms tight, like it’s the best he can do to restrain the angry energy the mere thought has generated.

“Life in the city, right? So glad Regris found this. Might’ve missed these fuckers down the road,” he grumbles, turning the cheap pinboard around in his hands. “Hey, is the old truck still nearby?”

Keith cocks his hip and gives Shiro a nod. “Yeah. Kolivan’s got it sitting in back-lot C.”

“Is that like automotive death row?”

“Pretty much.” Keith smiles, but it’s tentative, and he watches Shiro with kind and concerned eyes, as if waiting for the barest sign of his unhappiness. “Do you want to go see it one last time? Say goodbye?”

Shiro props his little corkboard of rude-ass customers on the new truck’s bumper and then straightens up. “Yeah. If you don’t mind. I think the closure would be good.”

The walk to the back lot is just long enough for Shiro to belatedly realize he’s a love-bitten mess, his hair swept askew by Keith’s carding fingers and his neck smattered with marks where Keith staked his claim. He only notices when he catches a glimpse of his reflection in a sheet of reflective chrome on the way, cursing low when he thinks of how he must’ve looked to Kolivan and Antok. A sliver of Keith is visible in the reflection, too, and Shiro doesn’t miss the smug smile he’s sporting.

The sun is high and scorching when they reach the old, dilapidated service truck that Shiro had first pinned his hopes on during that repossession sale so many months ago. It’s parked not too far from an industrial-sized dumpster, stripped bare of everything Shiro had done to soften its crudeness. Even his makeshift sign is gone, revealing the airbrushed clown monstrosity plastered across the side. In the harsh light of day, it paints a tragic picture.

Keith sways his hips, bumping gently into Shiro’s thigh. “We could give it like, a viking funeral, if you wanted. But I think that’s probably bad for the environment. And the fumes would be carcinogenic, most likely.”

“Hm. That’s okay. It’s a cool idea, but I think this thing’s a little cursed,” Shiro says as he pats the side of the wretched truck. A little rust and paint come away on his hand, which he brushes off along his leg. “I think it’s the clown...”

Keith nods, his lips curling the barest bit. “I definitely liked it better with your sign taped over its face.”

Shiro had forgotten just how terrible the airbrushing is, how hollow the eyes are as they bore down on anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves parallel to the truck. “I trust Kolivan to do what’s best for it. Resell it, maybe, or scrap off the usable parts. Whatever helps you guys recoup some of the costs.”

For a few moments, Keith is silent. His head turns slowly, incrementally, and his gaze eventually slides over to meet Shiro’s. “You know those big, big hydraulic compressors that smush cars into compacted blocks about yea big?” he asks, holding out his arms to indicate the approximate size.

“Yeah? Kind of. From TV.”

“That’s where it’s going, Shiro.”

“Oh.” That makes sense. He frowns about it, thoughtful. Saying goodbye is more bittersweet than he'd expected it to be.

Keith’s hand slips into Shiro’s, his dry skin brushing over Shiro’s damp palm. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Shiro meets Keith’s comforting little squeeze with one of his own. “Just a little sad to see it go. It’s where we met, after all.”

Keith nods as he reaches up to brush back the white fringe that hangs across Shiro’s forehead. “It is. But because of where you were parked at the time, we also technically met near the corner of Eighth and Pollux, by that walking path where that serial flasher terrorized couples and elderly singles for like, three months. And they never caught him, either.”

“You’re right,” Shiro sighs. He marvels at how perfectly Keith’s hand fits clasped in his own, warm and callused and gentle. He strokes his thumb along Keith’s slender wrist. “We’ll always have that stretch of sidewalk by the park where that guy repeatedly exposed himself.”

Keith grunts an affirmative. “Are you all done saying goodbye?”

“I think so.” Shiro gives his old truck one final salute, then lets Keith lead him back inside, out of the direct heat and into the welcome and relative cool of the garage.

“Kolivan said he wants this thing out of here today,” Keith says as they arrive back in the secluded garage housing Shiro’s new truck, arms linked together while they walk. “He’s tired of it taking up space in his personal workshop.”

“Well, we can see to that, huh?” Shiro bites down onto the cushion of his lower lip as an idea comes to him. He drags his finger along the sleek hood, then clucks his tongue as he inspects it. “You know, I think it’s gotten a little dusty sitting in here.”

Keith arches his eyebrows. “Really?” he asks, deadpan. “In two days?”

Shiro winks as he pops open the door. “Yeah. I think I ought to give it a wash. There’s a good self-service place not far from my apartment, which will be convenient since I’ll be completely soaked by the time I’m done.” He leans against the open door, barely holding back a satisfied smile as realization starts to work across Keith’s face. “Wanna come watch?”

Keith pulls his bottom lip in between his teeth, sucking hard before letting it loose with a quiet pop. There’s a glaze over his eyes that says he’s already piecing together that image. “Yes. Please.”

It turns out Keith likes riding shotgun in the passenger seat, feet kicked up on the dash with the little hippo plush secure in his lap for the ride. He’s helpful, too—keeping an eye out for Shiro during lane changes, alerting him to every dog they pass, and freely throwing double birds to anyone who cuts them off.

While stopped at a red light, Keith floats the idea of hitting the restaurant supply store over the weekend, just in case there’s anything else Shiro might want or need for his new set-up. When Shiro balks, Keith reminds him of how often he’s complained about being short on sheet pans, frustrated by cheap decorating tubes, or the lack of a good coffee bar to accompany his pastries and sweets.

“It just makes sense,” Keith assures as they turn into the car wash, his head rolling against the neckrest as he swivels to look at Shiro. He’s the most at-ease Shiro has ever seen him, like this is exactly where he's always wanted to be. “And I want to set you up right.”

Shiro snorts. “You’re just bringing it up now so I’ll put on a better show for you,” he says as he pulls the truck into an empty bay at the far end of the self-service station.

From the corner of his eye, Shiro can see Keith squirming as he tries and fails to fight down a shit-eating grin. ”No way. I have every confidence you’d give me your best effort no matter what.”

“Mhm,” Shiro intones, not remotely convinced. “I’ll give you your money’s worth, don’t you worry.”

The engine's heavy purr quiets as he parks, and Shiro runs his hands around the leather-wrapped wheel as he takes a moment to appreciate just how lovely Keith's truck is, how perfectly he picked it. He says as much, and Keith nearly glares at him.

"You mean your truck," he corrects, drawing out the word like it'll keep Shiro from forgetting it. Going by Keith's expression, he's not fucking around on this.

Shiro flings the keys at him as he exits the truck, but Keith's reflexes are too quick. He snatches them midair, wriggles his fingers to make them clink and jingle, and whistles low. “Big mistake, Shiro. Now I get to call when we leave.”

Though it’s afternoon on a late summer Tuesday, the car wash sits nearly empty. Shiro marks that up as a blessing, considering that he’s about to spend the next hour reliving the skimpy-bathing suit car wash fundraisers he did with his frat in college.

The passenger door slams as Keith exits, too. His sneakers slap against the concrete, still wet from a previous customer, and he takes a good look around the washing bay. It’s somewhat secluded, thanks to how the station butts up against a parking garage, and that seems to satisfy Keith. He licks his lips while he watches Shiro survey the station’s soap options and the going rate for ten minutes of wash time, thinking long and hard before he speaks up again.

“Let me take some video and I’ll buy you all the locally-sourced honey you want at that farmer’s market on Saturday.” His gaze flicks up to meet Shiro’s, matching intensity for intensity, heavy with all kinds of anticipation. Then he sweetens the pot even further. “Maple syrup, too.”

“Fuck, you’ve got me pegged,” Shiro sighs as he pulls his phone and wallet from his back pocket and hands them to Keith for safekeeping—but not before pulling out a twenty to feed into the coin machine.

He has a feeling they’ll be here for a while.