Work Text:
Keith has sensed something is coming but needed to be patient for Shiro to arrive at whatever was inevitable on his own: it comes on a Thursday afternoon, Keith hearing the car drive away after dropping off Shiro from the base. He peeks out the window and there’s something about his husband — the slump of his shoulders, the hang of his head — that tells Keith this is it. This is go time.
“Kits,” he calls out, “Daddy is tired so I’m going to talk with him first, you keep playing ok?”
“Ok!” two voices shout back as Keith opens the door to find Shiro on the engawa, miserable and defeated, his prosthetic tucked under his arm.
“Keith,” and Shiro sounds on the verge of tears, Keith reaching for him over the genkan to pull him in. He takes his briefcase and prosthetic, bending to pull off his shoes, getting him into the study and closing the door behind them. Shiro is standing there, back to him, still, before he starts to shake and whispers, “Work… is killing me.” With that admission his head snaps up, turning to look at Keith as if he’s shocked with what he himself just said, looking at Keith as if he might explain.
Keith nods, reaching out his arms and stepping to him. “It is,” he agrees, and with that Shiro breaks down, falling to the ground and taking Keith with him. Their arms grip each other tightly, Shiro pressing into Keith’s neck and crying. Keith grips his hair tight, pressing him closer, reaching out with his quintessence to try to comfort his mate as best he can.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Shiro cries, and Keith finds he’s crying too, scared at the realization that this was it, this was what has been building. The life they carefully crafted for themselves, the boundaries Shiro worked so hard to build, it got lost along the way as the Earth spun and needs grew and the universe needed more help as more problems crept up. But Shiro… Shiro needed to be free, and this wasn’t sustainable.
Keith grips him tightly, kneeling so Shiro is as comfortable as he can be (gods they were fathers, they normally did this for the kits when they were upset), as he tells him, “You have to stop working.” Keith would never tell Shiro what he could or couldn’t do but it has to be said, Keith has to protect his husband from himself here.
“I know but I’m scared.” Shiro’s arm is tight against Keith’s back and it hurts but Keith knows how much Shiro needs him, reaching for his amputation point to feel his quintessence, to press it against the palm of his hand in the hopes of giving more of his in return. “I have to provide for you and the kits–”
“You provide more than we need,” Keith interrupts, “but all the money in the universe doesn’t make up for you being home and healthy, my husband and their father, showing the kits how to take care of themselves. Living your life with us.”
Shiro cries harder, nodding against his skin, and Keith buries his face in his husband’s white hair. Maybe, if he was honest with himself, Keith was scared too.
The kits can sense something is up when Keith finally emerges from the study, holding Shiro’s hand and pulling him to the sitting area. He sits Shiro in his seat, kissing him deeply, before running up the stairs to get his comfiest sweatshirt and some fluffy socks. Coming back downstairs he finds the kits in Shiro’s lap cuddling him, Shiro’s arm around them as his husband continues to cry, telling them how much he loves them.
“Kits, who wants to help me help Daddy change?” The kits climb down so Keith can help Shiro lean forward, getting his shirt and undershirt off to pull the sweatshirt on instead. Shiro lifts his ass for him to get his pants off, pulling off his socks too. The kits enjoy scurrying away with the laundry for the downstairs hamper as Keith gets his socks on, smiling up at Shiro who still looks exhausted and miserable. Keith ruffles his hair a little, just because he wants to touch him, and Shiro does smile a little as the kits crawl back onto his lap, cuddling him and immediately trying to get under his sweatshirt for skin to skin contact.
Dinner they eat at the low table, Keith making fried eggs over rice, the kits on either side of Shiro giving him strength. Even the wolf gets in, laying behind Shiro which gives him something to lean back against as Keith takes care of locking up the house and settling them in for the night. They watch the TV on low for a while after that, the kits holding Shiro holding them, Keith close by in case until the kits start to drift. He carries Hoshi up as Shiro insists on carrying Raku up, Keith explaining to his daughter Daddy is too tired for their normal routine.
“I know,” Hoshi says sadly. “I want to help Daddy.”
“You did, you did so well, baby girl, thank you.” Keith kisses her head as they finish in the bathroom brushing her teeth and hair, changing her into pjs then putting her down for bed with a recording of one of her grandparents reading her a book. Keith rushes to help Shiro and Raku, Raku already falling asleep by the time they’ve get him in his pjs, Keith carrying him with Shiro following after to put him to bed, putting on a different grandparent recording to help him fully drift to sleep.
“Come you,” and Keith pulls Shiro to their room, sitting him on the side of their bed and turning to see the wolf looking at them. “You watch the kits tonight for us, ok?” and the wolf gives a little bark, nuzzling Keith’s hand before laying himself down between the kits’ doors. Keith shuts the door.
Shiro looks so exhausted, tired eyes taking Keith in, but Keith knows sleep won’t come easy now, moving in to run his hands over his husband’s shoulders and down his back, kissing him slowly to initiate and see if Shiro wants to make love. Shiro kisses back, pulling Keith in with a tight arm around his back, hand gripping Keith’s ass as if he can’t hold back and desperately needs him. They make out like that for a bit, hips rubbing against each other as their breathing becomes more shallow, their kissing more desperate and sensual.
“Let me take care of you,” Keith murmurs against Shiro’s lips and Shiro nods, eyes closed and mouth open.
Keith kisses him again, deep and hard, before pulling back to strip Shiro of what little clothes he has on now. Shiro’s hand stays on Keith’s hip the whole time, as if he needs to be touching him, Shiro standing to get his boxers off before Keith lays him back in bed, crawling over him and kissing him passionately. He pulls back only to pull his own clothes off, Shiro watching him with desperate eyes like he can’t look away, and Keith wonders if this is how he normally looks at Shiro when he’s begging his mate for physical intimacy to calm his soul. To be needed like this by his mate turns Keith on more, getting everything off so he can lay over Shiro and rub against him, Shiro’s hand gripping his bare ass cheek tightly as their dicks rub together and against their abs, Keith pulling hard at Shiro’s hair as he explores his mouth, his jaw, his neck.
“Tell me what you want,” Keith breathes into his ear, Shiro moaning in response, but Keith persists, thrusting harder and repeating himself, “Tell me what you want, Takashi, I have to know.” Did Keith absolutely fucking hate when Shiro did this to him? Yes. But did he understand why his Dom did that and secretly relish in it? Also yes, and tonight his Dom needs someone to take control for him.
“Inside you,” Shiro gasps, “please, Keith, please.”
“You will be, Taka, you will.” Keith kisses him desperately before pulling back, kneeling and contorting himself to get at Shiro’s nightstand drawer for a glove and lube, Shiro gripping his thigh tightly until he’s back on top of him. Shiro kisses him over and over as Keith fingers himself open, rubbing their dicks together in slow forward and back hip thrusts, “You’re going to feel so good inside of me, Taka, you always do, always provide for me and take care of me.” Keith had always been the bigger talker when they had sex but he wasn’t normally the reassure-praise-soothe one, though for Shiro he would do anything.
Shiro cries as Keith slides down his dick, his hand gripping Keith’s mate mark as Keith bounces up and down before leaning back over him, trying to get the angle right so he can kiss his husband. Shiro keeps telling him, “I love you, I love you so much,” over and over like he’s desperate for Keith to know, so Keith assures him too,
“I love you, Takashi, you are so incredible, you are my everything, I love you.”
“You are my universe, Husband,” and Shiro starts thrusting up harder against Keith who thrusts back, “I need you, I need you–”
“I’m here,” Keith assures, squeezing around Shiro’s dick inside him, “I’m always here with you, I’ll never leave you, Takashi, oh, Takashi–” and his dick hits the sweet spot that makes Keith’s eye roll back, his vision going blank as his orgasm catches up to him. He squeezes as hard as he can around Shiro, taking him in as deep as he can as pleasure washes all over him. He feels Shiro grip his ass cheek tight as he comes too, their mouths mashing together in a nasty kiss of fierce need.
Shiro holds him close with his arm tight around Keith’s back, and Keith lays on his chest kissing his skin and whispering how much he loves him as Shiro continues to cry, until Shiro falls asleep. And even then Keith stays where he is for a little while longer, happy he could provide for his husband, no regrets at all that this was their life, a life he thought he’d never have or deserve. And here he was, with Takashi Shirogane: together they’d make it through.
Keith is sat on the kitchen stool at the wall phone, because he liked the wall phone and this felt like a wall phone call.
“He’s very sick,” Keith tells Phylly, “I honestly think he might be sick through the weekend too.” He hears Dorie say something in the background but doesn’t catch it, a quiet between them before Phylly suddenly hangs up. Shiro’s secretaries were top tier so it catches Keith off guard, until his personal phone on the kitchen table rings and he sees “Phyllis Torres” on the screen. “Explain?” Keith asks upon answering, hearing movement before Phylly finally speaks.
“We don’t want this on the official line,” she whispers and Keith imagines she’s found somewhere near the office to call him from.
“We were expecting this,” Dorie adds, and it occurs to Keith that of course they were, of course they sensed something coming the way he had: they spent so much of their week with Shiro, watching him, taking care of him not just as their flag officer but as part of their family, not a son but more their favorite nephew they liked to rib.
“We’ve been around the block long enough,” Phylly informs him, “to know the signs, and to also know when it’s not our admiral we need to speak to but their spouse.”
“I’m sure you both did an admiral job trying to talk him down before this,” Keith concedes, because they are incredible women, the way they manhandle Shiro without ever overstepping, the way they know how to sneak info to Keith in such a way that it never violates GG secrecy. Even this, Keith hadn’t thought about how to be vague enough over the official line without anyone figuring it out while still telling them what they needed to know: they had the decades of experience on him. “He needs a few days at home, at the very least.”
“Agree,” Dorie says, louder now as if she’s holding the phone. “But he’s going to fight you tooth and nail.”
“We need a long term strategy,” Phylly murmurs.
“Hard agree,” Keith says, “can you two, like… suggest all the options available? There has to be something between continuing in this cursed manner and full retiring, but I don’t know enough about what career officers can do, I was sort of planning on being dead by 20 after Shiro was declared dead.”
Phylly sighs and Dorie chuckles, whispering back and forth to each other before Phylly assures him, “we’ll have someone bring over drafted options later, but you need to go over them with him, he’ll listen to you, Keith.” He has the power here, she’s reminding him.
“I know… thank you, both, I appreciate you so much and you’ve kept him going.” There’s padding down the stairs and from the weight and speed, that has to be Shiro. “I’ll go over it with him, can you two also buy us time?” Shiro enters the kitchen, still naked, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, big guy, I had to make a call,” and Dorie laughs again on the phone as Shiro nods, trudging over to press against Keith, face in his hair. Keith realizes he came down because Keith wasn’t there and he wanted to stay close. “I’ll have my phone on me if you need me,” Keith adds for Phylly.
“We’re going to try to keep this off the books, Dorie will handle how sick he is and I’ll make myself scarce to get the options together: don’t worry about us, we’ve done this before. You take care of our boy, ok?”
“Ok, thank you, ladies.”
After hanging up, Shiro nuzzles his nose into Keith’s crown before whispering, “You are conspiring with my secretaries.”
“Always: they’re calling you in sick for a few days and that’s an order.” Shiro nods, kissing Keith’s head. “Go back to bed, love, I’m going to call your parents to help with the kits today; I’m sure the wolf will cuddle with you in bed until I can come back up.”
Shiro nods again, pulling back to look sadly at Keith before he smiles a little.
“I like when you call me ‘love’.” That catches Keith off guard, because he just called Shiro whatever felt right in the moment. “The wolf needs a bath,” Shiro adds before he goes back out of the kitchen, giving a whistle for the wolf who comes bounding in off the engawa to follow his father upstairs.
Keith weighs who is the better one to call, deciding it’s Sam who answers quickly. “Morning, my boy, I have Colleen here if this is for both of us.”
“It is, your workaholic son’s workaholic ways have caught up with him.”
Colleen sighs sadly, “Our Takashi,” and it’s so maternal Keith momentarily forgets this isn’t actually Shiro’s parents.
“I suspected this was coming,” Sam admits quietly. “What can we do for you two?”
“I called Takashi in sick today: if you two can take Raku, and help with Hoshi when she’s finished with school, so I can focus on him–”
“Done,” Sam assures, “we can keep them overnight too if you’d like.”
Keith rolls that around before deciding, “No, I think Taka would get anxious without them here, but maybe tomorrow we’ll play it by ear if it’ll be good to have people join us here to help or take the kits or if the best thing will be the four of us alone where Taka can feel like he’s protecting us.”
“You just let us know,” Sam says, “Colleen is already running about.”
“Our grandkits are coming!” Keith hears her shout from a distance. “They need space!”
“They need space,” Sam repeats for Keith.
“So I’ve heard,” and that makes Keith smile. “Thank you both.”
“Of course: have you already spoken with the ladies on a non official line?”
“Yeah they were on top of it though they might need an off the book mule later.”
“We’ve got Matt,” Sam says in absolute seriousness.
Keith carries Raku downstairs, Hoshi quietly following, leading them to the engawa where he set up a little table and breakfast.
“Daddy needs time today,” Keith explains, sat between them, and they both nod.
“I can go… to Gwandma and Gwandpa,” Raku offers with rice in his mouth.
“Thank you: I did call them and they’re excited to have you today.” Raku grins big.
“Will they pick me up?” Hoshi asks.
“They will, they’ll bring you to school and you’ll go home with them until dinner. I think Daddy will feel best though if we’re all together tonight, but that might change, ok?”
“Ok,” Hoshi says, sad. Keith strokes her cheek, knowing she’s sad because Shiro is feeling down. “You will stay with Daddy?” she asks, pushing her spoon around her soup.
“I will, I’ll be with Daddy all day, and Ms Phylly and Ms Dorie are also helping Daddy too.”
His kits think about that before Raku declares, “I like them.” Hoshi nods.
“I like them too,” Keith agrees as a car drives towards the house. “Now, who do we think is picking you up, Grandma or Grandpa?”
“Grandma!”
“No, Grandpa!”
They eat a little breakfast in bed before making love again, Shiro over Keith slow and methodic as he thrusts in and out, Keith clinging to him and praising him as Shiro’s body shakes, his voice quiet as his quintessence screams. Shiro falls back to sleep after that, Keith holding him to his chest as he sorts through his own thoughts, the wolf coming in to lay on the floor (Shiro had finally managed to set a boundary with the wolf which was no going on the bed when one of them had their dick in the other). It reminds Keith a little of when they were first married, when they were in their on base rooms and there was nothing for them to do once Shiro was free from work.
Keith wants that feeling again, for a little while, like everything is possible and will be ok. Keith wants that for Shiro and is willing to fight for it.
Just after midday Keith manages to get Shiro to let him go so he can make lunch, only for Shiro to follow him downstairs. He sits him on the kitchen stool and they eat mac and cheese out of the pot at the stove, because the kits liked when Keith made them boxed mac and cheese so he thought Shiro would too.
“This is nice,” Shiro murmurs, and Keith decides this was the right move after all.
Shiro goes back to bed, Keith convincing him to use the TV to keep him occupied. He gathers up laundry from the kits and the bathrooms, putting on a load to feel productive, when there’s a sudden knock at the front door. Keith finds it’s Phylly, gesturing her in but she won’t move beyond the genkan.
“I can’t be gone long,” and she gestures behind her where Keith sees Matt waiting in his SUV. “We’re supposedly getting a prescription from the pharmacy that requires me to go in person.” The amount of lies going on suddenly hits Keith, how deep this was and how much was being risked to keep Shiro safe. “These are the options,” and she flips through the massive bundle of paper, finding a lot of handwritten notes and crooked photocopies, “the shitty photocopier at Keyes’s old office is amazing because it’s never correctly kept a record of what it copies.”
“Are we… circumventing tech with this?” Keith looks at her, a little scared, and asks, “How bad is this?”
Phylly tilts her head to the side, tapping her cheek, before she says, “Anything for Shiro.” With that she kisses his cheek before scurrying back out to the SUV.
“Call the burner if you need us!” Matt shouts as he reverses the vehicle, and looking down Keith sees a post it with a phone number and the label untraceable. The day had really escalated.
“Why was my brother here?” Shiro calls gently from the top of the stairs.
“How do you say drug mule in Japanese?” Keith asks as his husband comes downstairs. Keith gets up on tiptoes to kiss him, Shiro holding him close before asking,
“What’s the paperwork about?”
“Your secretaries have been cooking,” Keith says, leading the way out to part of the engawa he knows is in the shade. He hands Shiro the papers once he’s sat, letting down the sudare to ensure extra shade and privacy. Keith takes the papers back to sit in Shiro’s lap, back to chest. “You have to understand how clandestine this has become, it’s kind of scary what they know.”
Shiro chuckles, Keith caught off guard by that, turning to see him brightening a little as he explains, “Dorie stole a bunch of contraband broken devices from Keyes’s office, Phylly told me not to ask questions for plausible deniability.”
“Contraband like what?”
“All photocopiers, printers, and even shredders must record what they are processing to a central location, which is why I told you you need to never photocopy your genitals on base.” Keith had thought Shiro was overly concerned at the time, but now it’s starting to make sense.
“Phylly did say she used Keyes’s photocopier, thus the lower quality.”
“Yeah we haven’t been able to commandeer it for ourselves as Sablan also knows about it and uses it.” Shiro flips a few pages of the papers, getting quiet as he looks through. Keith finally starts reading some of them, seeing the name Cooper on a bunch of pages. “They worked under Cooper for a long time, and my understanding has always been he did a lot of special access work, like USAPs and IN-SAPs.” Keith doesn’t bother asking what those are: he already knew Blade secrecy levels and that was enough for him.
Keith leans his head back, rubbing his nose against Shiro’s neck. “You seem happier now.” Shiro pauses, taking a deep breath, before he kisses Keith’s forehead.
“Thank you for taking care of me.”
“Always. So what clandestine work have we gotten ourselves into?”
As an answer, Shiro pulls a post it note off a paper a little ways in, holding it up to read.
ATS,
You do whatever you need to for you and your family: we will support you and make it work no matter what, even if that’s permanent retirement.
P&D
“ATS?” Keith asks.
“They have a stamp saying it and everything,” Shiro chuckles. “They’re good people.”
“They are,” Keith agrees, putting the post it note on the first page. Quietly they flip through the paperwork, not taking in all of it but just getting the general gist: a lot of the photocopies seem to be research the secretaries had done for Cooper or Keyes, whom Keith had thought was Brigid’s father (and he is listed in a few places) but now he sees they meant Brigid’s grandfather, Galaxy Garrison’s first admiral of the fleet, when they did research for him on his retirement options. “They have truly been in the game for a while.”
“They’re more qualified than anyone else in all of Galaxy Garrison.” Shiro is reading a table Phylly filled in by hand with numbers and calculations, Dorie having rated each of them in the right margin with her thoughts. “They’ve been trying to get me to step back.”
“It’s a group conspiracy,” Keith assures, shifting to face Shiro a bit. His shoulder presses into his mate mark on Shiro’s chest, wrapping one arm behind Shiro’s back as the other reaches to caress his residual limb. “We’d talked about visiting Japan for the kits’ Shichi-Go-San but….”
“But….”
Keith looks up into Shiro’s waiting face and whispers, as if saying it too loudly might jinx this opportunity, “What if we go for a whole year?”
Shiro has been sat on the floor of his study crunching numbers on his computer, alternating between a military straight back and pure shrimp mode. Keith understands you can’t get between an anxious bi making a decision and their spreadsheet, leaving his husband to it as he crunches his own options mentally.
It’s the first time Keith imagines what he would want: not what would be best for his kits, or his husband, or their extended family and friends. What would Keith want?
Shiro had bought them land in Japan to build a country house, along with land on New Daibazaal they’d built a house on that Krolia uses. They even had land on New Altea which Shiro had promised Keith he’d build a sprawling Heian manor house on. It had been wonderful visiting Japan the first time with Shiro but it’d be different living there: that would be long term, and they had the kits, and now Keith was much better at Japanese but he also was much more aware of how much he didn’t know linguistically and culturally. Maybe it would be nice, though, with the kits, to see Japan through their eyes; and they’d have Shiro if they can get him away from work.
Keith has learned about himself that if his husband and kits are happy, that’s what brings him great joy, and the thought of Shiro with the kits in Kyoto, all three of them thriving, makes Keith feel warm just imagining it.
They could visit Korea too, Hoshi would love it and Raku was becoming very interested in Keith’s father. That would be nice, to have more access to his own family, the places they knew and the traditions they participated in and the archives of their lives, the only records left for Keith to discover who they were.
Most sadly, Keith realizes going to Japan and Korea would be so much easier now because the kits no longer look Galran: Hoshi never took her disguise off and Raku who didn’t care also kept his disguise on most of the time, seemingly for his sister’s benefit more than his own. He hates that they have to hide who they are but he got away with not looking Galran and he didn’t want to subject his children to more hate than they had to face.
The study door slides open as he finishes setting the dishwasher to run. “Keith!”
“Coming!” He dries his hands before joining Shiro in the study, still sat on the floor.
“Please step into my office,” Shiro says seriously, gesturing across from him. Keith snorts, rolling his eyes as he sits. “I’ve been running the numbers.” Keith thinks Shiro is so funny when he’s like this, but he’s been too burnt out from work to be his fullest weirdo in a while; it’s good to have him back.
“We gonna have to sell off one of the kits?” Keith jokes, Shiro frowning at him in disappointment.
“Please, Myeong, this is a Serious Conversation.”
“I cannot take you seriously like this, why are you using my name Korean name?”
“This is a serious conversation,” Shiro repeats in Korean which makes Keith absolutely lose it, Shiro finally cracking a smile and laughing too, reaching for Keith who takes his hand, allowing Shiro to pull him forward to kiss. This was his Shiro, his Takashi, whom he fell in love with.
“You’re so stupid,” Keith says in Japanese, Shiro laughing more.
“Wanna see my spreadsheet?”
“I cannot wait to see the color coded charts.”
Shiro turns his laptop around, Keith looking at the tables and charts. “The timing would be complicated but we could absolutely swing a year in Japan.”
“What would be complicated about the timing?” Keith sees the amount of money Shiro had budgeted for a year, twice their current expenses. “We going to be living big?”
“If we’re going to be in Japan, it is more expensive and I want to be able to experience everything,” Shiro explains. “The complication is American and Japanese schools operate on different schedules: in Japan, the new year starts in April.”
“What?!” Keith stares at Shiro, mouth open. “Are you serious?”
“I thought you knew this, that’s why there’s April start techo.”
Keith’s mind is spinning. “Shit’s wild.”
“You’re wild,” Shiro comments, chuckling. “That’s why I came to Arizona late March, early April.”
The stars start to align in Keith’s mind in a way they never have before, Shiro at sixteen, school uniforms, it all comes together.
“You went to an all boys private school,” Keith comments, Shiro nodding.
“It’s co-ed now.”
“How do you know that?”
Shiro blushes before admitting, “I looked it up a few months after the kits came home.” Keith kisses him, laughing.
“You are such a sap.”
“I thought today was about making me feel better!”
“Well,” Keith laughs, “it has, hasn’t it?”
Shiro is quiet for a moment, thinking, before the corner of his mouth goes up and he looks so handsome. “It has. Thank you, Husband.”
“Where would we live?”
“So,” and Shiro turns the laptop back around to find a different tab he presents to Keith, “I could get the country house built quick and we can stay in the townhouse for a while as we find our routine. I have a lot of plans drawn up already so we just have to pick one, and then the family company can make it happen in a few months, we have all the necessary connections.”
Keith smiles, blushing. “Can I see the plans?” Shiro blushes too.
“I’d love to show you.”
“Thank you!” Keith calls as he leans over the genkan out the front door, the kits in the genkan desperate to get their shoes off to run to their father.
“Of course!” Colleen calls back, waving from beside her car. Keith moves as Raku shoves past him, Hoshi following, as they absolutely run to Shiro at the low table, the wolf showing up to also run around.
“Alright, alright!” Keith tries to calm the wolf, seeing the kits climbing all over Shiro who smiles and laughs and kisses them. “Be gentle with Daddy, please.”
“That’s quite alright,” Shiro assures, getting the kits sat on his lap. Keith comes to sit across from them, the wolf laying nearby. “Kits, Papa and I have something important to discuss with you,” and he turns the cover of his large drawing pad over to show a house plan. “We have to decide what our country house in Japan will look like.”
“Really?!”
“So cool! Did you draw these, Daddy?”
“I did,” Shiro admits, “and I think it’s time we start building it.”
They had agrees not to tell the kits just yet what they were planning: they already knew they’d go to Japan eventually, and they knew about the land for the country house, but the rest they’d keep a secret for now. Something just for Shiro and Keith, like when they were first married, happy and free with their lives ahead of them.
Shiro winks at Keith across from him, and Keith smiles, leaning on a hand with his elbow on the table as the kits look at the different options their father had drawn.